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DIGITALISATION AND WORKERS PARTICIPATION: WHAT TRADE UNIONS, COMPANY LEVEL WORKERS AND ONLINE PLATFORM WORKERS IN EUROPE THINK

DIGITALISATION AND WORKERS PARTICIPATION:

WHAT TRADE UNIONS, COMPANY LEVEL WORKERS AND ONLINE PLATFORM

WORKERS IN EUROPE THINK

DIGITALISATION AND WORKERS PARTICIPATION:

WHAT TRADE UNIONS, COMPANY LEVEL WORKERS AND ONLINE PLATFORM

WORKERS IN EUROPE THINK

Report summarizing the results of the ETUC online survey on Fair Digitalisation and Workers Participation and other activities in the context of the project

“Workers Participation – A key to Fair Digitalisation” (VS/2014/0490)

Report to the ETUCECKHARD VOSS / HANNAH RIEDE

September 2018

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PREFACE

When the ETUC started to discuss digitalisation issues, the debate was quite developed in some countries while in other countries there was no public debate at all. At the European level, the European Commission set the tone with its communications on ‘collaborative economy’ and ‘online platforms’, which were discussed in the European Parliament. The Commission saw the platform economy mainly as a source of growth and employment, often neglecting its negative aspects. The Commission preferred spreading euphoria, and advertised digitalisation as the recipe against unemployment and slow economies. It was the Parliament that looked at both sides, the opportunities and the risks, and asked the Commission not only to deliver more facts and figures, but also to reflect upon mitigating the negative aspects of labour platforms by delivering a directive. Online workers were, and often still are, not covered by employment law or collective agreements. They seldom have access to social security, paid leave, training etc. owing to the simple fact that the platforms regularly require workers to register as self-employed.

The ETUC also saw the need for more evidence and drafted an online questionnaire survey, the first Europe-wide online questionnaire on digitalization, to find out what was happening on the ground in Europe. Our main objective was to learn more about the challenges faced by and the practices of worker representatives at shop-floor level, trade unionists, and members of works councils, of European works councils or supervisory boards. The response was far greater than expected – in the end, more than 1,500 colleagues from all over Europe participated and delivered interesting insights. This is what our report is about. We thank Eckhard Voss very much for designing and implementing the survey and for drafting this report.

In parallel, the questionnaire contained a smaller section aimed at online workers. The results show that the potential for trade unions is higher than expected. Online workers are not only global workers who deal with, for instance, software development and can work from any place on the globe. They also work in sectors such as cleaning, transport, food delivery and similar locally provided services - most of the participants in the survey are from this latter group. The problems faced by local service providers can be addressed in a European directive, which would constitute a clearly necessary step in the right direction in terms of protecting online workers.

Digitalisation is more than a catchword. It is and will remain at the centre of many debates, namely those linked to the rapid development of artificial intelligence, which is surrounded by many societal, ethical and even philosophical questions, but also those touching on digital assistants, block chain, genetic engineering, the future of work, and cobots.

Workers’ participation is and will remain key in shaping fair digitalisation and the future of digital work – this principle was the starting point of the questionnaire and remains the central message of European trade unions. There will be no fair digitalisation without appropriate and mandatory workers’ participation!

Peter Scherrer (Deputy General Secretary ETUC)Wolfgang Kowalsky (Senior Advisor ETUC)

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INTRODUCTION

1 See the short overview of workshop programmes and participating countries in the annex of this report.

THE ETUC PROJECT AND THE SURVEY

Digitalisation has become one of the most important catchwords in the debate about structural changes within the economy, our societies and particularly in the world of work. The accelerated change triggered by digital technol-ogies presents both opportunities and risks. These risks, as they relate to existing jobs, working conditions and employment prospects, have to be addressed by enhanced involvement of workers and trade unions.

This report summarises the results of a large online survey that was developed and conducted between June 2017 and June 2018 in the context of an ETUC project “Workers Participation: The key to fair digitalisation”.

In addition to the survey, the project comprised further activities such as scientific expertise based on desk research, a legal expertise on online platform work/crowdwork, interviews with around 30 workers representatives in EWCs and workers’ board level representatives in larger multinational companies, and a series of four workshops with national ETUC/ETUF affiliates and company representatives in Copenhagen, Tallinn, Madrid and Berlin.1 Through these activities, the ETUC aims to strengthen the voices of workers and trade unions in the public debate on digitalisation.

The ETUC survey is currently the most comprehensive overview of trade union and company workers representatives’ assessments, views and experiences with regard to digitalisation and its various impacts on employment and work: In the context of the survey, more than 1,500 responses were gathered from trade unionists and company level workers representatives from more than 30 European countries, including from EWCs and SE works council mem-bers in more than 220 transnational companies.

The survey definitively shows that both trade union organisations and company-level employee representatives are fully aware of the challenges posed by digitalisation and are demanding a real say in shaping digital transforma-tion processes. Additionally, a separate survey section was dedicated to online platform workers (‘crowdworkers’) which aimed to uncover their perception of this specific form of work, as well as their expectations in terms of work-ers participation and trade union policies and practices. More than 50 platform workers commented on these issues.

The core focus of the survey and of the other activities carried out in the context of the ETUC project is workers participation: In its resolution on fair digital work dated June 2016, the ETUC made demands “to strengthen information, consultation and board-level representation to better anticipate and manage change, in particular an inclusive transition towards good and fair digital work.” Furthermore, the ETUC stressed that workers’ representa-tives in general as well as in company boardrooms in particular, should regularly scrutinise the introduction of new technologies, internal and external outsourcing; and to use collective bargaining to implement new rights related to digitalisation.“ Building on these objectives and orientations, the ETUC project aims to strengthen the capacity to anticipate and manage change related to digital technologies, both at company level and beyond.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 5

1 THE SURVEY PARTICIPANTS 7

2 DIGITALISATION IS MORE THAN A FANCY WORD! 10

3 OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS: MUCH WILL DEPEND ON THE RIGHT OR WRONG FRAMEWORK CONDITIONS 11 More opportunities or risks? 11 Specific opportunities and risks: Jobs and working time ranking highest 13 Significant differences between countries when it comes to opportunities and risks 14

4 DIGITALISATION AS A TOPIC OF WORKERS PARTICIPATION – RESULTS THAT SHOULD RAISE CONCERNS 16 Public policies on digitalisation: Overall dissatisfaction and worrying gaps 16 North-South and East-West divides as regards information, consultation, workers board level representation and collective bargaining 17 Collective agreements on digitalisation issues – harsh reality contrast to urgent needs 20

5 SHAPING FAIR DIGITAL WORK – KEY TOPICS, EXPERIENCES AND PRACTICES 22 Important issues surrounding workers participation and digitalisation 22 Business strategies and digital business models 25 Introduction of new technologies 27 Working time, telework and work-life balance 29 Right to disconnect 32 Training and qualification 34 Employee data protection 36 Job and social security – substitution, anticipation and future of work 38 Health and Safety 40 Competences and representation of 'peripheral' workers 41

6 TRADE UNIONS ALSO HAVE TO ADJUST! 43 Should trade unions campaign more on digitalisation? 43 Change in organising and recruitment practices 43 Build new competences and make better use of digital technologies 44

7 WHAT ONLINE PLATFORM WORKERS AND CROWDWORKERS THINK 46 Online platform workers that participated in the survey 46 Motivations to work via online platforms 48 Working conditions 49 Expectations from trade unions 50

CONCLUSIONS 53

ANNEX: 56

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1 THE SURVEY PARTICIPANTS

The ETUC survey addressed three dif-ferent target groups – trade union officials of ETUC or sectoral European Trade union Federations, workers’ company representatives and, as a third group, online platform workers / crowdworkers.

Nearly 60% of all responses (949) to the survey were from workers representation bodies at company level. This group is quite diverse: respondents were chairpersons or spokesmen of company trade union committees or works councils at local level, quite a large number of respond-ents were also EWC delegates and chairpersons – 360 survey participants from 23 EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland, which represent more than 200 European Works Councils across all sectors partici-pated in the survey.

Furthermore, more than one quarter (250) of employee representatives responding to the survey were work-ers board level representatives (WBLR), most of them from Austria and Germany, but others coming from countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Belgium, the Nether-lands, Spain, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Nearly 600 trade union officials across all economic sectors responded to the ETUC survey. While around 60% of all participants indicated that their organisation was affiliated to the ETUC, survey responses also reflected membership strength for sectoral European trade union fed-erations: most responses were from the large service and manufacturing federations UNI Europa and industriAll, followed by the ETUFs in transport (ETF), public services (EPSU), food and drink (EFFAT), construction (EFBWW) and education (ETUCE).

DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY OF THE SURVEY

The ETUC survey was launched as a multilingual online survey2 and addressed three types of target groups:

Representatives of trade unions affiliated to the ETUC and/or the European sectoral trade union federations (ETUFs)

Workers representatives at company level at national and international level, including EWC and SE Works Council members as well as workers board level employee representatives (WBLER)

Online platform workers / crowdworkers

For these target groups, three different questionnaires were developed. While the questionnaires for trade union representatives and company level workers representatives were quite similar, the questionnaire for people work-ing via online platforms was specifically designed for this target group.

The two questionnaires addressing trade unions and company level workers representatives aimed to gather assessments and experiences regarding key challenges related to new and disruptive technologies, as well as the changes in our economies, labour markets and workplaces resulting from digitalisation. Focussing on workers participation, the core interest of both questionnaires was to gather data on issues such as information and con-sultation, collective bargaining from company to transnational level, as well as trade union policies and strategies as regards digitalisation.

The main purpose of the survey addressing online platform workers was to gather complementary information on this type of work, which is very heterogeneous in terms of occupational profiles and services provided. In contrast to a number of already existing surveys, the ETUC survey – in addition to issues such as self-perception, profile of online platform workers, motivation to engage in working for online platforms or via apps – focussed on the assessment of working conditions, as well as the perception of trade unions and collective organisation. This aspect makes the ETUC survey quite unique in comparison to other surveys.

The survey questionnaires were developed during spring 2017 in close cooperation with the ETUC secretariat and a project group consisting of representatives of European sectoral trade union federations (ETUFs). It was launched at the beginning of June 2017 and disseminated to all ETUC and ETUF affiliates at national level. National trade union member organisations also disseminated the questionnaire survey amongst their affiliates at sector and company level. The survey was run for one year and was also promoted during the four ETUC cluster workshops that were organised between June 2017 and June 2018. The survey was closed at the beginning of June 2018.

CONTENTS OF THIS REPORT

This report summarizes key findings of the ETUC survey results. After an overview of survey participants and their national, sectoral and company specific backgrounds (chapter 1), the report addresses the perception of the broad term of digitalisation (chapter 2) as well as opportunities and risks as seen by national level trade union organisa-tions and company level workers representatives (chapter 3). Chapters 4 and 5 focus on workers participation and digitalisation. This main part of the report summarises both survey results and the results born of accompanying interviews and workshops, focussing on different types of workers participation from a country comparative per-spective, as well as the way that key topics and challenges are covered by trade union policies and company-level interest representation practices. Chapter 6 of the report gathers results of the survey as regards the need to adjust trade union practices and policies in the light of the digital transformation process. Finally, chapter 7 high-lights key findings of the survey aimed at workers engaged in work for online platforms, including their views and expectations as regards trade union support and policies.

2 The online questionnaire was made available in 7 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Dutch.

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DIGITALISATION AND WORKERS PARTICIPATION: WHAT TRADE UNIONS, COMPANY LEVEL WORKERS AND ONLINE PLATFORM WORKERS IN EUROPE THINK DIGITALISATION AND WORKERS PARTICIPATION: WHAT TRADE UNIONS, COMPANY LEVEL WORKERS AND ONLINE PLATFORM WORKERS IN EUROPE THINK

As regards gender characteristics, the ETUC survey included one question related to the assessment of respond-ents on the impact of digitalisation on gender equality issues (see the following chapter 3). However, the survey did not ask directly about gender characteristics. However, from those respondents who provided their full name, it can be concluded that the female participation rate in the survey on average is 22.6%, ranging from 19.8% of participants in Western European Countries to 34.6% of participants in Central and Eastern Europe.

Certainly, one of the strengths of the dataset that was gathered by the ETUC survey is the comparatively bal-anced coverage of different European regions. Though more than half of all responses were from Western European countries, the response rate of around 450 from Southern European countries was surprisingly high. Furthermore, in Central and Eastern Europe, the ETUC survey obviously met the current interests of trade union and workers representation bodies.

Though the survey received responses from all EU Member States (apart from Cyprus and Malta) plus the EEA countries and candidate countries such as Bosnia Herzegovina and Macedonia, some countries stand out in terms of quantitative responses. By far the most numerous responses were received from three countries: Aus-tria, Belgium and Spain, where 300 plus participants in each country took part in the survey. A second group consisting of countries reflecting different regional clusters and consisting of Germany and France as well as Poland, Finland and Italy featured a response rate between 50 and 100 participants. Compared to these num-bers, response rates in other countries were much lower, with ten countries having a response rate of less than five.

As a consequence, more than 90% of responses are linked to 11 countries: the eight mentioned above, as well as Sweden, Denmark and the Czech Republic. As the following sections of this report will note, these 11 coun-tries will be used to analyse results and explore both differences and similarities between countries in terms of assessments, experiences and practices.

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2 DIGITALISATION IS MORE THAN A FANCY WORD!

The ETUC survey has been a unique source of information on the general perception that trade unions and workers representation bodies have of digitalisation. On average, around one third of all trade union and company workers representatives think that the term ‘digitalisation’ is just a fancy word for new tech-nologies and technology driven change. On the other hand, more than 60% of all respondents disagree with this assessment.

However, differences between countries are striking: For example, while around 60% of Danish survey participants thought that digital-isation was just a fancy word for new technologies and technology driven change, only about 20% of respondents from Germany shared this opinion. A strong majority of survey participants in Germany as well as Austria, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Belgium and Poland regard digitalisation as more than just a trendy catchword. This was also confirmed by the additional interviews carried out with workers representatives in EWCs and supervisory boards: Interview partners from various countries and across different sectors strongly stressed that digitalisation had been both a source and trigger of restructuring and change programmes, which were more comprehensive and radical than other forms of restructuring.

Digitalisation seems to accelerate not only the globalisation of HR and corporate policies but also that of rationali-sation and automatization processes in order to increase productivity and efficiency.

As regards the differences between target groups of respondents – trade unions versus company representatives, EWC delegates or workers board-level representatives versus other company level workers’ representatives – the survey did not reveal any significant differences. Country specific differences were much more important than other differences.

3 OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS: MUCH WILL DEPEND ON THE RIGHT OR WRONG FRAMEWORK CONDITIONS

MORE OPPORTUNITIES OR RISKS?

Digitalisation is a polarising issue: While nearly half of all respondents to the ETUC survey thought that the opportunities presented will outbalance the risks for their respective country or company, there is a strong minority of over a third of the respondents that believe the opposite. Furthermore, one out of ten respondents to the survey indicated to simply not know. Eastern Euro-pean and Nordic countries were most confident that digitalisation would provide more opportunities than risks. 60% of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed. This optimism contrasts with attitudes in Southern and Western European countries where 50% or less of all respondents thought that opportunities could outweigh risks. Interestingly, the most pessimistic are trade unions and com-pany representatives in Western European countries.

It should be noted here that the differences between the various groups of respondents were rather small. On average, there was hardly any difference between trade union officials and company employee representatives. EWC members were slightly more optimistic when it comes to opportunities – 54% expected more opportunities for their own company, compared to an overall average of just 50%. And only one third of the responding EWC members (32%) expected more risks for the company when thinking about digitalisation (average: 37%).

When thinking about positive and negative impacts it should be kept in mind that for the dominant economic model of our time, the most important objective of doing business is the return on capital.'Multi-channel’ is the magic word. The customer is the focus and employees always have to be prepared.Work intensification, productivity increases, monitoring of performance and behaviour.Employees feel incapacitated because the skills they have acquired over a long period time are no longer are needed.

(Comments from participants of the survey)

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SPECIFIC OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS: JOBS AND WORKING TIME RANKING HIGHEST

In order to learn more about the concrete impact of digitalisation, respondents to the ETUC survey were asked to select from a predefined list of risks and opportunities the two items that they regarded as most important. Arising from con-sultation with the ETUC and ETUFs, as well as from literature reviews and interviews carried out in the context of the study, the following possible seven opportunities and seven risks were defined in the online questionnaire:

OPPORTUNITIES RISKS

Creation of new jobs (computer engineers, scien-tists, network experts, etc.)

Destruction of jobs, new forms of ‘Digital Tay-lorism’ and increase of precarious work

Working time reduction and increased work autonomy

Working-time extension – increase of ‘anytime, anywhere’ work

New forms of collaboration and cooperation between workers & machines

Weakening of workers’ representation, erosion of collective action and bargaining coverage

Better ergonomics due to support in performing heavy, dangerous and complex work

Increased competition between workers to reduce costs, e.g. by online-platform work

Smart/intelligent factories – jobs that have been offshored to low pay countries will come back Work intensification, dependence on ‘data masters’ and surveillance

Work intensification, dependence on ‘data mas-ters’ and surveillance

New opportunities for women, more gender equality

Increased inequality between workers

New forms of making money in the sharing economy Erosion of tax base and social insurance financing

Erosion of tax base and social insurance financing

As shown by the following figure, the largest share of respondents (45%) ranked the creation of new jobs (such as computer engineers, scientists or network experts) first in terms of important opportunities. It should be noted here that this opportunity was mentioned most by survey participants in Southern Europe (51%) and least by those in Central and Eastern Europe (38%). Also ranking high were positive expectations regarding working time reduction and increased work autonomy. More than one third of respondents considered this to be one of the top two most important opportunities presented by digitalisation.

However, according to the survey participants, the other opportunities outlined in the questionnaire seemed far less relevant: only slightly more than a quarter of respondents mentioned the possibility of new forms of collaboration between workers and machines, or better ergonomics due to new technologies supporting performing heavy, danger-

The differences between geographic regions become even more striking when looking at individual countries: Whereas in Denmark and Poland respectively 80% and more than 70% of respondents thought that digitalisation was good for their country or company, percentages in Italy (35%), Germany (33%) and the Czech Republic (27%) were much lower. Accordingly, scepticism towards the opportunities afforded by digitalisation to countries and companies varied greatly (cf. Figure 9), ranging from only 7% of respondents in Denmark expecting more risk to 45% in Belgium and the Czech Republic and even 47% in Germany.

The survey also revealed differences between sector-specific expectations of opportunity or risk. This is best illustrated by a comparison between the responses of European trade union federations and those of their national affiliates.

While trade union representatives in the food and drink sector (EFFAT) seemed to be relatively optimistic, with around 50% of responses expecting more opportunities, all other ETUFs were more sceptical. Trade unionists from public sectors (EPSU), transport (ETF) and construction (EFBWW) in particular expected digitalisation to result in a far higher degree of risk for companies in these sectors. As regards the two largest ETUFs, UNI Europe and IndustriAll, both showed similar shares of around 40% of affiliates expecting more risks and around 40% expecting more opportunities.

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Whereas 40% of Finnish trade unionists and company representatives and 39% from Denmark highlighted that reshoring jobs and the development of smart factories might be an opportunity presented by digitalisation, only 7% of the Czech respondents and 11% of the Austrian respondents had the same feeling.

Table 1: The two most important opportunities (%, n=768)

OPPORTUNITIES AT BE CZ DK FI FR DE IT PL ES

Creation of new jobs (computer engineers, scientists, network experts, etc.)

44 38 40 22 43 56 41 47 38 50

Working time reduction and more work autonomy 49 35 53 33 31 17 31 44 33 32

New forms of collaboration and cooperation between workers & machines

35 26 0 22 23 22 21 24 31 28

Better ergonomics due to support in performing heavy, dangerous and complex work

31 29 20 39 23 33 44 26 23 19

Smart/intelligent factories – jobs that have been offshored to low pay countries will come back

11 14 7 39 40 14 13 15 17 26

New opportunities for women, more gender equality 10 9 13 0 3 0 5 18 10 12

New forms of making money in the sharing economy

7 11 13 0 3 11 7 6 17 9

Similar differences between countries can be observed when it comes to risks:

The risk of jobs being destroyed and precarious work increasing was generally felt to be the most important risk in 8 out of 10 countries – however it varied between 58% in Belgium and 57% in Germany on the one hand and only 28% in Denmark;

While 40% of Austrian respondents regarded working time extension as being one of the most important risk, only 13% of the Czech respondents felt it to be so;

6 in 10 survey participants from the Czech Republic highlighted the risk of weakened workers representation and collective bargaining in contrast to only 17% in France;

There are also significant variations in national perceptions regarding the risks of increased workers competition (32% in Italy versus 6% in Finland) and work intensification (36% in Germany versus only 13% in Spain).

Table 2: The two most important risks (%, n=768)

RISKS AT BE CZ DK FI FR DE IT PL ES

Destruction of jobs, new forms of ‘Digital Taylorism’ and increase of precarious work

52 58 40 28 49 42 57 44 50 56

Working-time extension – increase of ‘anytime, anywhere’ work

40 20 13 28 34 19 30 18 23 37

Weakening of workers’ representation, erosion of collective action and bargaining coverage

24 35 60 28 34 17 28 35 35 35

Increased competition between workers to reduce costs, e.g. by online-platform work

25 23 7 17 6 31 16 32 21 18

Work intensification, dependence of ‘data masters’ and surveillance

25 17 13 33 14 31 36 21 29 13

Increased inequality between workers 9 11 0 11 29 14 5 24 13 16

Erosion of tax base and social insurance financing 15 10 0 11 6 8 3 15 2 8

ous and complex works. And less than one in ten respondents regarded improvements in terms of gender equality and new opportunities for women, or “new forms of making money in the sharing economy” as important opportunities.

Jobs and working time are also ranked amongst the top impacts of digitalisation when it comes to risks: More than half of all respondents (52%) regarded the destruction of jobs, new forms of Digital Taylorism and precarious work as the top or second most important risk related to digitalisation. This risk was highlighted in particular by respondents from Western (54%) and Southern (53%) European countries, and much less so by respondents in the Nordic countries (35%).

Around one third (varying between 23% of respondents in Central and Eastern Europe and 35% in the Nordic coun-tries) also ranked the extension of working time by an increase in ‘working anytime, anywhere’ amongst the two most important risks.

Another striking and worrying result of the ETUC survey relates to workers participation and democracy at work: On average, 30% of trade unionists and company-level workers representations feared that digitalisation would result in a weakening of workers participation and in the erosion of collective bargaining in their respective country and/or company. It should be noted that this risk was most widely perceived in Central and Eastern Europe (37%).

As regards other risks, between one in five and one in four respondents highlighted increased competition between workers and work intensification as amongst the two most important risks. A further result of the survey is that nearly one quarter of the respondents from the Nordic countries regarded increased inequality between workers as one of the two most important risks.

SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COUNTRIES WHEN IT COMES TO OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS

The ETUC survey has revealed significant differences between countries when it comes to the percep-tion of opportunities and risks. It is very likely that this reflects differences in socio-economic background and framework conditions, but also the actual and perceived influence of trade unions and workers representation in the context of implementing digital change process at company level and beyond.

As shown in the table below, there are significant variations in the national perception of opportunities:

While 56% of French respondents and 50% of respondents in Spain mentioned the job-creation potential of digitalisation amongst the most important opportunities, only 22% in Denmark hold this opinion;

53% of respondents from the Czech Republic and nearly one in two Austrian survey participants highlighted working time reduction and increased work autonomy as an important opportunity – but only 17% of the French survey participants did so;

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Similarly, the involvement of trade unions in broad and general initiatives as well as national government pro-grammes such as digital agendas is weak overall: There are large quantitative and qualitative gaps in trade union involvement. Less than one quarter (24%) of all trade union respondents indicated that unions were involved in such initiatives as an important stakeholder. Sweden and Germany were the only countries in which more than half of the respondents regarded the role of trade unions in national initiatives and programmes as ‘important’. In Spain, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Belgium, trade unions felt that they were only involved as one stakeholder amongst many others, while in Poland, France and Italy a high share of respondents commented that unions were not involved at all in national digital agendas or similar programmes.

The results of the ETUC survey are also rather sobering when it comes to the involvement of trade unions in education and training policies and in initiatives and policies fostering digital skills and competences acqui-sition.

On average only one third of all trade union respondents considered that unions were involved as an important actor in such policies and initiatives. Assessments of trade unions being an important actor were high in Sweden (100%), rel-atively high in Denmark (83%) and Germany (64%), but reached less than 50% in Finland, Austria and Spain, and were very low in Italy (13%), France, Poland and the Czech Republic (17%). In Italy, around one third of all respondents indicated that trade unions were not involved at all in such ini-tiatives.

NORTH-SOUTH AND EAST-WEST DIVIDES AS REGARDS INFORMATION, CONSULTATION, WORKERS BOARD LEVEL REPRESENTATION AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

A major result of the ETUC survey is that digitalisation today ranks promi-nently on the agenda in terms of information and consultation: Around 65% of all trade union representatives and company level worker representa-tives reported that digital change has emerged as a topic of information and consultation at various levels (cross-industry, sectoral and company).

This is not the case as regards the establishment of working groups within trade unions and company level employee representation bodies: Only around one third of respondents indicated that such groups had been established.

There are also marked inequalities between different country clusters when it comes to digitalisation and digital change being addressed by information and consultation as well as trade union/workers representatives working groups: The highest incidences of these criteria can be found in Western Europe, with slightly lower percentages in the Nordic countries and in Southern Europe (similar shares). However, these proportions decrease significantly in Eastern Europe, where less than half of the respondents reported that digital change had emerged as a topic of information and consultation, and only 8% reported the establishment of working groups within trade union or company level work-

4 DIGITALISATION AS A TOPIC OF WORKERS PARTICIPATION – RESULTS THAT SHOULD RAISE CONCERNS

PUBLIC POLICIES ON DIGITALISATION: OVERALL DISSATISFACTION AND WORRYING GAPS REGARDING TRADE UNION INVOLVEMENT AND PARTICIPATION

In general, trade unions in Europe are highly sceptical about public policies addressing digitalisation: When asked whether or not the effects of digitalisation, automatization and computeri-zation on work and employment had been adequately addressed by public policy initiatives, only 26% of trade union representatives agreed.

However, assessments of the way that public policies are address-ing digitalisation and its impact on the world of work and employment varied significantly from country to country. Whereas in Denmark, Austria and Germany, nearly half of trade union respondents thought that challenges had been addressed by public policies, the dissatisfaction (and lack of knowledge) exhibited by trade unions with regard to public policies is particularly striking in Italy (92%), Belgium (86%), France (85%), and Sweden (around 80%).

As highlighted by both interviews and workshops, the disappointment experienced by trade unions in the last two countries is due to political changes in the national government that, contrary to strong traditions of tripartite social dialogue, has introduced policy changes that have weakened the participation of trade unions in public policies.

The worst thing is the absolute refusal of the Government in Bulgaria to participate in real public debate on matters of digitalisation.

(Trade Union Representative, Bulgaria)

Systematic monitoring of all IT projects and their impact on the number of jobs and their quality by the works council is needed. Informa-tion needs to come in due time in order to develop suitable solutions to deal with the consequences of digitalisation.

(Company/EWC Representa-tive, Belgium)

The Disruption Council in Denmark provides a platform to discuss future of work in regards to digitalization

(Trade Union Representative, Denmark)

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of CGIL) and organising expert meetings on the issue of digitalisation in order to build up competences and internal know-how. These ini-tiatives were reported from all EU regions.

Another example is that of the joint trade union sponsored interna-tional research project DIRESOC (“Digitalisation and Restructuring, which social Dialogue?”), which was highlighted by the Spanish trade union organisation CC.OO as an example of good practice in terms of exchanging information and establishing expertise. The project intends to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of digitalisation in different sectors (manufacturing, tourism, banking and finance, postal services) in eight different countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden (further information: Fundación 1º de Mayo, http://www.1mayo.ccoo.es).

However, very few activities and no concrete cases of good practice were reported from unions in Central and Eastern Europe. This stems again from a lack of capacities and resources. Therefore, trans-national trade union activities that are carried out with the active involvement of trade union organisations from Central and Eastern Europe seem particularly valuable. One example is the Danube@Work project (https://www.oegb.at/cms/S06/S06_90.0/home) that was initiated by the Austrian trade union federation ÖGB and invol-ved trade unions from Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia.

ITALY: IDEA DIFFUSA ONLINE PLATFORM OF CGIL

Idea Diffusa (https://www.ideadiffusa.it) is an online collaborative platform that was developed by the CGIL trade union and launched in 2017. Its aim is to gather and share information, experiences and knowledge on digitalisation and its many facets. This diffusion of information and knowledge should foster a better under-standing of the impact that digitalisation has on employment and work, and better prepare trade unionists at company and sector level to develop the adequate responses necessary to effective workers participation.

Find out more here: http://www.cgil.it/cose-progetto-lavoro-4-0/

ers representation bodies. This disappointing result in Central and Eastern European countries is worrying since, according to workshop participants and inter-viewees, it is due to both a lack of capacities and resources as well as a lack of company/public policy sup-port.

Considering the comprehensive nature of digital change processes in sectors, companies and the workplace, it is important that trade unions as well as workers representation bodies engage with the topic, gather informa-tion and build up capacities and competences. In view of this, information and consultation processes need to go beyond the obligation of the employer to inform and consult with workers representation bodies about the intro-duction of new technologies, digital devices and tools, soft- and hardware as well as changes in work organisation and business strategies that have an impact on employment and the workplaces. In order to do so, information and consultation processes are now related to workers representation and participation at different levels, i.e. infor-mation flows and consultation between workers representation at company or group level and different sites of the company. This new dimension was highlighted by many survey respondents.

Furthermore, information and consultation between trade unions and workers representation bodies at company level contribute to awareness and competence building. Many comments also stressed that exchange of informa-tion, mutual learning from practices and consultation within trade unions and workers representation bodies were important in order to better understand the impact of digitalisation on employment and work.

Trade union representatives from a wide variety of countries highlighted examples of good practice, namely various activities of exchanging information, organising seminars, establishing online resource platforms (see the example

In the financial sector we have a common working group with employers.

(Trade Union Representative, Finland)

We have established an 'Industry 4.0 Club' ('Verein') together with the employer in order to reflect upon the impact on the company and the workers.

(Trade Union Representative, Austria)

We have negotiated an agreement with the management on the introduction of mobile working; e-learning; relocation of activities abroad to so-called shared service centres; work in virtual teams across national borders; monitoring performance and behaviour; data protection.

(Groups Works Council Chairman, Germany)

We organise meetings with trade union activists, experts (scientists, engineers, future researchers) addressing digital-isation and the future world of work in order to raise awareness as regards accelerated change and the impact of digitalisation.

(Trade Union Representative, France)

20 21


It should also be noted that there is a wide variety of relevant collective agreements. Examples range from com-pany agreements on trade union representation and workers’ rights in US-based multinational digital companies such as Amazon, to sec-toral agreements on ICT mobile work in the insur-ance sector in Germany or Finland, or on the implementation of new technologies in the chem-ical sector in Spain.

As was previously high-lighted for the Central and Eastern European region, collective agree-ments also follow national patterns and peculiarities. This is the case for example with the importance of national sectoral collective agreements in the Nordic countries, Belgium or Germany in contrast to the strong role of collective bargaining at provincial level in Spain. However, across all countries, the following general results regarding collective bargaining are important to underline:

By far, most examples of collective agreements have been concluded in large companies; Far fewer agreements have so far been concluded at sector level, and these focus very much on sectors that

are strongly affected by new digital technologies and experiencing marked impacts of digitalisation on the world or work, for example the financial sector, post, telecommunication and logistics, health services, high-tech companies or the automotive sector;

Hardly any collective agreements concluded at cross-industry level have so far been reported.

Further details on the most frequently mentioned topics and aspects of digitalisation are presented the following section of this report.

COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS ON DIGITALISATION ISSUES – HARSH REALITY CONTRAST TO URGENT NEEDS

Trade union activities on digitalisation have evolved very rapidly over the last two years. This can be seen quite clearly when looking at the responses to the ETUC survey over time, particularly the sections related to collective bargaining at cross-industry, sector and company level: When the survey was launched in June 2017, there were hardly any responses indicating that the participant was aware of any collective agreement concluded on issues related to digitalisation.3 This changed significantly during the following months, and the number of respondents who referred to collective agreements increased constantly in nearly all EU regions. However, even after the closure of the survey in June 2018, only 14% of all respondents on average reported being aware of a collective agreement on digitalisation at sector or company level. Furthermore (as the following section will detail fur-ther), these collective agreements tend to be limited in scope as well as content, meaning that only a lim-ited number of themes have so far been addressed across all EU regions.

This contrasts starkly with the needs identified by respondents in terms of anticipating and managing digital change. Indeed, the survey received several hundred responses that highlighted the aspects and topics needing to be addressed by collective bargaining and agree-ments with employers at local and national level.4

Central and Eastern Europe is a marked blind spot once again, demonstrating a very low incidence of collective bargaining activities and thereby reflecting not only the weak involvement of trade unions in sector-related and company-specific change and practices, but also the overall low rate of collective bargaining in these countries. This is illustrated by the very low number of respective responses from Poland and the Czech Republic as presented in the figure below.

When interpreting country-specific results, a note of caution is necessary: Results should not be regarded as an accurate indication of the absolute number of collective agreements addressing digitalisation in each respective country or region. The results simply illustrate the existing awareness of such company and/or sector agreements.5

3 The question was phrased as “Are you aware of concrete cases of companies or sectors where collective agreements have been concluded on issues related to digitalisation?” If so, the respondent was asked to provide basic information on the company/sector as well as a brief summary of the agreement.

4 The survey included two questions on the subject, asking the respondent about which topic, according to them, should be most urgently addressed by collective agreements at sector, cross-sector level or company level by collective agreements with view on shaping ‘fair digital work’. Overall, there were more than 450 qualitative responses.

5 As regards the high figure of Italy in the table below for example, the survey showed that a lot of respondents referred to a few widely known collective agreements in large companies.

We have negotiated an agreement with the management on the introduction of mobile working; e-learning; relocation of activities abroad to so-called shared service centres; work in virtual teams across national borders; monitoring per-formance and behaviour; data protection

(Groups Works Council Chairman, Germany)

22 23


reskilling and further training, or health and safety issues are, according to experts, relevant to all occupational profiles across the whole range of economic sectors. With regard to these subjects, the overall small proportion of respondents indicating that they have been addressed by information and consultation should be cause for concern. Especially since it is important to note that the ETUC survey more likely reflects the situation in larger companies, where workers representation bodies exist and the issues mentioned above ought to be addressed in compliance with the legal requirements of EU-wide information and consultation frameworks. In fact, many of the qualitative responses to the survey, in particular those given by trade unionists at sector and company level both from Central and Eastern Europe and from countries with high response rates such as Austria, Belgium and Spain, reported numerous cases in which the employer had introduced new technologies without any prior information, not to mention consultation.

The following table provides an overview of overall project results regarding the coverage of important topics related to digitalisation by different types of workers participation.

Table 3: Have the following topics been addressed so far within your workers representation body or organisation? If yes by which tool?

PERCENTAGE SHARE OF OVERALL RESPONSES * No

Yes,

with

in u

nion

or

gani

satio

n

Yes,

info

rmat

ion

and

cons

ulta

tion

Yes,

com

pany

agr

ee-

men

t

Yes,

sec

tora

l col

lec-

tive

agre

emen

t

Business strategy

Change in the business model/strategy of the company / sector due to digitalisation 21 26 34 10 2

Outsourcing and offshoring of work/tasks to online platforms 40 16 22 8 1

New technologies

Introduction of new digital technologies, e.g. automation, robots, digital devices such as handhelds, tablets, data glasses, smart gloves, etc. 24 19 32 15 2

Changes in work organisation and work processes linked to the application of digital technologies 20 21 37 14 2

Working time

Work-life balance or working time, issues related to digitalisation 30 23 21 11 4

Telework and ICT mobile work 28 15 21 22 5

Right to disconnect 41 19 15 8 2

Training and qualification

Change in occupational profiles and qualification 28 18 28 8 3

Further training and acquisition of new skills through digitalisation of production or service 29 19 29 8 3

Data protection

Introduction of technologies to monitor performance and behaviour 32 14 23 17 1

Protection of personal data, e.g. gathered in the context of ICT work, automation processes, etc. 23 19 23 19 2

Health and safety

Health and safety, stress, psychosocial risks, e.g. related to ICT based mobile work, digital devices and tools 26 21 28 11 5

Representation of new types of workers in the digital economy

Competences of employee interest representations to address and represent the interests of “peripheral” workers, e.g. freelancers, dependent self-employed, sub-contract workers, etc.

43 23 12 4 1

Source: ETUC survey. (N= 961 – 989).* Note: the share of respondents indicating ‘don’t know’ is not included in the table. It ranges from 6 to 17%.

5 SHAPING FAIR DIGITAL WORK – KEY TOPICS, EXPERIENCES AND PRACTICES

IMPORTANT ISSUES SURROUNDING WORKERS PARTICIPATION AND DIGITALISATION: SLOW AND UNEVEN PROCESS OF SHAPING THE FUTURE OF WORK

The ETUC survey asked participants in trade union organisations, company-level employee representatives, EWC members, and workers representatives in company boards about the relevance of specific topics related to digitalisation for workers par-ticipation practice, i.e. information and consultation as well as negotiating agreements from the workplace level to EWCs and the highest level of company decision-making in supervisory boards.

The information presented in the box on the right illustrates that cer-tain common themes have emerged so far. The issues that seem particularly important for negotiated solutions as regards coping with the impact of digital change processes and new technologies are related to working time, new forms of ICT mobile work, personnel data protection, or the right to disconnect.

The gathering of information on important topics linked to workers participation also showed that certain issues, particularly those men-tioned in the textbox have been addressed much more frequently than others, despite their relevance for working conditions, job secu-rity and the future of work in companies and sectors.

The survey has further shown that good practice linked to workers participation is concentrated in relatively few EU countries, par-ticularly those in Western Europe. Whereas these results will be described in more detail in the following sections, the table below provides an overview of the range of topics deemed to be highly rel-evant in the context of digitalisation and the frequency with which they have been addressed by different types of workers participation.

The high shares of respondents reporting that many aspects in these different thematic fields have not been addressed so far is another worrying overall conclusion of the survey. Of course, issues such as the right to disconnect or the outsourcing of work to online platforms

might not be relevant for certain companies. This might explain why around 40% of respond-ents indicated that this topic had not addressed. However, topics such as the introduction of new digital technologies, including methods that have the potential of monitoring performance and behaviour of workers, needs for up- or

Examples of shaping fair digital work

In France, the right to disconnect has been negotiated in the post & tele-com sector.

In Italy, various companies have con-cluded agreements with the trade unions on smart working, including telework and ICT mobile work.

In Spain, Austria, the Nordic countries and Germany, agreements on telework and ICT mobile work have been negotiated in the insurance sector, reflecting also the joint agreement of the European Social Partners in the financial sector

At the AXA insurance company, the right to disconnect has been implemented in Belgium, Italy and France as well as Spain.

In Germany, many manufacturing compa-nies such as Daimler, Bosch or ABB have local agreements between the manage-ment and works councils on ICT mobile work, regulating that all working time has to be documented and remunerated. Furthermore, the right of employees to work at home has been strengthened.

In the hospital and healthcare sectors data protection and regulation of new dig-ital technologies that have the potential to monitor the performance and behaviour of personnel have been concluded in coun-tries such as Germany, Austria, France, the Nordic countries or Italy.

There are sectoral agreements on reskill-ing employees whose jobs are under threat due to automatization in Spain and Germany.

Source: Responses to the ETUC survey

There is a timer on the lights in thetoilets where workers are allowed tostay not more than 2 minutes. Afterthis, lights turn off. This is connected toa system counting the seconds whenthe worker is not updating work in thecomputer. These seconds are excludedfrom the working time and not paid. Ifthis time exceeds a certain amount, theworker might be fired.

(Trade Union Representative, Bulgaria)

24 25


BUSINESS STRATEGIES AND DIGITAL BUSINESS MODELS

In addition to the emergence of new business models that essentially depend on digital technologies and ICT, digitalisation had a strong impact on existing business and companies across all sectors, from agriculture to public services. Therefore, the impact of digitalisation on business models and the impli-cations for work and working conditions as well as employment has been an important issue for trade union representatives and works councils at sector level as well as company level.

Respondents to the ETUC survey stressed that changes in business models, significant investments in new technologies such as artificial intelligence or software (often in the context of new acquisitions, mergers or establishing new business units), were decided at the highest company level, which are corpo-rate headquarters (which may sit outside Europe) and supervisory boards. This is the reason why many respondents stressed that European Works Councils and workers representation in boards were very important tools in the context of anticipating (early information, consultation with key actors at the company headquarters) and influencing the implementation of digital change projects and restructuring. Though they are of course dependent on the cooperation and good will of the employer (which is not always present), supervisory boards and EWCs provide an added-value in terms of early information gathering and a possibility to engage in dialogue and communicate with the highest ranks of the company. This can build trust and lay the ground for joint initiatives and projects, as well as agreements on the anticipation and management of change in the context of digitalisation. However, survey particpants also highlighted the limitations of EWC practices – even in cases where management was cooperative and open-minded.

Quantitative survey results showed that the role of EWCs and workers partic-ipation in board rooms (where digital strategies, make or buy decisions and investments are decided) were also important in order to support and provide information to employee representatives and trade unions in countries that were only weakly, if at all, involved in decision making or information and consulta-tion procedures.

As the following figure shows, there is quite a wide gap as regards information and consultation on digitalisation and business models between countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland or Spain on the one hand, and Finland, Sweden, and Germany on the other. While in Finland for example, 47% of respondents reported that business models were addressed by information and consultation with the companies’ management, this was only reported by 25% of respond-ents in Poland and 22% in Spain (overall average 33%).

As shown by the table, only around one third of respondents to the ETUC survey reported that certain issues (changes in work organisation and work processes linked to the application of digital technologies; change in business models due to digitalisation, introduction of new digital technologies) had been addressed by information and consultation processes. As regards other important topics, the respective shares were much lower. This is the case for example regarding working time issues (less than one quarter), telework and ICT mobile work, the right to disconnect, change in occupational profiles, and new skill requirements (below 20%). Only 23% of respondents reported that the introduction of new technologies that have the potential to monitor performance and behaviour or data protection issues had been addressed by information and consultation at company level so far.

Even lower shares of respondents reported that collective agreements linked to digitalisation had been concluded at company level or at sector level: With 22%, telework and ICT mobile work was the aspect most regulated by agreements at company level, followed by the important topic of the protection of personal data gathered in the context of ICT work and/or automation processes (19%) and the introduction of technologies to monitor perfor-mance and behaviour (17%).

Telework and ICT mobile work was an aspect that, according to survey respondents (though only 5% of them), had also been addressed by sectoral collective agreements. With only 4% and 3% of respondents indicating that such sectoral agreements existed, the next most frequently mentioned issues were work-life balance or working time issues and health and safety, stress, psychosocial risks related to ICT-based mobile work or digital devices and tools.

Finally, it is interesting to look at the issue of new forms of work and employment. The subject is currently high-up on the public debate agenda and was mentioned in many qualitative responses as one of the most important chal-lenges faced by European economies and societies as a result of digitalisation, not only as regards the emergence of online platforms and work in the app and gig economy, but also in relation to the increase in bogus self-em-ployment and precarious dependent employment. While around one quarter of respondents indicated that both the topic and the challenge it presented had been addressed by trade union working groups, only 12% reported that it had also been subject to information and consultation at company level. However, only 4% of respond-ents reported that the competences of employee interest representations to address and represent the interest of ‘peripheral’ workers such as freelancers, dependent self-employed or sub-contract workers had been addressed by negotiations with employers at company level; at sector level this share dropped to 1%.

We are a global company, currently employing a work-force of currently 110,000. When asked, where the company would like to be in five years, nobody has a clue. Currently, everything is about testing and exploring.

(Supervisory Board Member, MNC, Chemical Sector, Germany)

Doctor's assistants at Danish hospitals were facing the challenge of new digital platforms which would take over a substantial amount of their tasks. Instead of fighting digitalisation, they sat down and analysed which new tasks/needs emerged from the technology and made a list of new services they could provide to the hospi-tals. Great approach!


In the European Works Coun-cil of the METRO Group, we completed a two-day study / training course on the subject of "digitalisation". Following the UNI conference in Berlin, we decided to conduct an international survey of the impact of e-commerce on our retail business.

(Makro-METRO EWC Repre-sentative, Belgium)

Digitalisation is not a classical capital/labour conflict – it is a creative task (‘Gestaltungsaufgabe’). Workers have to influence decisions now, in order to avoid a situation where they only are taking part in deal-ing with the social impacts of digitalisation.”

(Workers Representative Supervisory Board, Bayer, Germany)

26 27


This however, does not mean that the link between digitalisation and outsourcing/offshoring is weak: When it comes to bad practices, the ETUC survey has gathered numerous examples of outsourcing and offshoring being facilitated by digital technologies without any prior information or consultation of workers.

INTRODUCTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES

The introduction of new digital technologies and processes, for example automation, robots or digital devices such as handhelds, tablets, data glasses, or smart gloves that have an effect on work processes and work organisation has so far been most frequently addressed by workers participation at company level, namely as a subject of information and consultation and company agreements.

The issues addressed range from workers bringing their own devices to work, the private use of work-related hard-ware, equipment of workplaces with digital devices such as tablets or smart tools, use of social media and apps, internal company platforms, and many other issues that arise in the context of regulating (and defining) minimum standards and limits for the use of new technologies.

On average,

32% of all respondents reported that the introduction of new digital technologies had been addressed by information and consultation with management; around 14% also indicated that company agreements had been reached on this issue;

37% of all respondents indicated that changes in work processes and the organisation of work had been addressed by information and consultation and nearly 14% reported that this issue had been addressed by company agreements.

As regards both issues, sectoral collective agreements were much less common (reported by less than 2% of respondents). However, this is not surprising since the regulation of new technologies is typically a company or even workplace issue of workers participation.

This might explain why, as regards differences between regional clusters and single countries, there are quite sig-nificant gaps in terms of workers participation in relation to the introduction of new technologies. In Western and Nordic countries in particular, company agreements such as the German or Austrian ‘Betriebsvereinbarungen’ are more widespread than similar arrangements in Southern and Eastern European countries. Another of the study’s more concerning results is the high share of respondents from Eastern Europe reporting that the introduction of new digital technologies had not been addressed by company-level information and consultation practice at all.

Digitalisation not only has an impact on «make or buy» but also on «make or sell» decisions. Some participants in the ETUC survey highlighted in textual responses that digitalisation had, for example, accelerated a tendency to out-source company tasks to foreign service providers, mainly for cost reasons. In the same vein, survey comments mentioned tendencies to establish online-plat-forms within a company in order to create internal competition or even outsource tasks to external online or crowdwork platforms.

However, the quantitative survey results indicated that this trend was not being felt equally in European countries and amongst trade unions and workers rep-resentatives at sector and company level. While it seemed to be an issue of increasing relevance in countries such as Italy, Belgium, Finland or the UK, it was much less relevant for Austria, the Czech Republic or Poland as shown by Figure 21. On average, only around 20% of all respondents indicated that out-sourcing to online platforms had been a topic of information and consultation so far.

We as an EWC have con-cluded a global framework agreement with the Renault management. This agreement covers many business areas but the main focus is on employment and job security. There are regular follow-up meetings with management and there is a joint search for solutions in relation to new emerging challenges. This is not always easy but we are doing our best to contribute to sustainable solutions in the interest of the workers.

(Company Employee Repre-sentative and EWC Delegate, Renault, Austria)

European Works Councils do not have many powers even if they function well. With only two meetings a year it is very difficult to influence anything.

(AXA Senior EWC delegate, Belgium)

Outsourcing of the account-ing department to China in connection with invoices, outsourcing of the ser-vice department to Poland regarding the helpdesk, job destruction by online standard forms for handling complaints, repair orders and cost allocations.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, Belgium)

Increased 'best' shoring in the UK due to the methods of communication digitally improving. In the past the company would have all customs work based in the UK, but now digital trans-formation has made instant communication across the globe possible in seconds, a lot of the UK customs opera-tions have been 'best' shored to India/Malaysia.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, UK)

28 29


Problems were not always ascribed to management neglect or failure. Comments from Spain also highlighted that local workers representatives, in particular in smaller companies, often lacked the expertise and know-how needed to gather relevant information and engage seriously in consultation processes that in turn are necessary to conclude a good agreement and find a suitable solution.

WORKING TIME, TELEWORK AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE

In the context of the ETUC survey, no other issue gained more attention and replies from trade union and company workers representatives than working time.

This can be observed in the responses to a survey question concerning the topics that need to be addressed most urgently by collective agreements at sector or cross-sector level: The top issue on the list is working time and work-life balance with a share of more than 20% of respondents. Around 10% of survey participants also referred to the right to disconnect and to telework and ICT mobile work as illustrated by Figure 26.

Digitalisation has put many issues related to working time (back) on the agenda of workers par-ticipation, namely the impact of automatization and rationalisation gains on working time (reduction), conditions of working time, regulation of ICT-re-lated work at home or outside normal working time, availability, monitoring and documentation of work-ing time, maximum hours, remuneration, as well as several aspects related to the increasingly blurred boundaries between working and private life.

By contrast, the relatively high share of workers participation regarding new technologies and their regulation in Nordic and Western European countries indicate that this issue is quite an estab-lished feature of workers participation at company level. It is worth noting that this is in line with the European Framework Directive on Information and Consultation and is therefore included in the list of topics to be addressed.

For example, many German and Austrian workers representatives at company level reported as good practice their company’s usual procedure to conclude agreements with the works council on IT and new technologies that have an impact on work processes and work organisation.

These positive examples contrast with experiences reported in particular by company representatives from Central and Eastern Europe, but also from coun-tries in Western Europe such as France, Spain or the UK. Here, many survey par-ticipants reported negative experiences as regards company practice when intro-ducing new technologies, namely the lack of prior information and consulta-tion.

It should also be mentioned in this con-text that the assessment of EWCs and European information and consultation practices was quite mixed: While in some EWCs, practices were described as positive and having a positive impact even in countries where local workers participations rights were quite weak, practices in other EWCs were described as poor and insufficient.

In the Nordic countries, most collective agreements include regula-tion dictating that there should be local agreements at company level regarding the introduction and use of new technologies and/or tech-nologies that monitor the performance and behaviour of employees.

(Interview with trade union representative, Finland)

Our company agreement on IT is twenty years old. Since then a lot of new agreements have been added to it. Currently, with the support of the groups works council a total revision is under way.

(Company Workers Representative, Germany)

We have negotiated a local agreement regarding an online plat-form that involved all employee-relevant processes such as further training, performance and talent management. Our negotiations were supported by the GPA-djp trade union.

(Company Representative Austria)

To force the use of tablets, computers were removed from the offices, this has led to the prevention of occupational hazards by issuing a negative report on the matter with an obligation to change format.

(Company Workers Representative, Spain)

The topic was not included in the annual meetings of the EWC and they acted as if there would be no impact on the company (fault of the management and also of the workers' representatives due to inactivity).

(Company Workers Representative, MNC, Spain)

Introduction of new electronic management systems without provid-ing training for use, or delimiting the functions to be performed by each worker / department.


At a local level, giving employees access to electronic courses that are related to the industry that we are involved in. However, access is very limited during working hours.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, Ireland)

Working conditions are increasingly being pur-sued through digital tools that increase productivity and worsen the working conditions compounded by managers who cannot cope with everyday life. Employees are increasingly being asked to spend time on digital tools without reducing the workload.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, France)

In the case of acutely occurring problems in systems, trou-bleshooting for the customer can be handled more quickly from home with virtual reality glasses. Missions to distant countries often can be avoided.

(Company Representative, Germany)

John Deere offers telework on up to three days per week. The involved parties can change the days in mutual agree-ment.


At Hewlett-Packard in Italy, trade unions were able to conclude an agreement on agile work.

(Trade Union Representative, Italy)

It is good that digitization gives you the opportunity to work from home. Saves a lot of unnecessary commuter traffic (costs, time and pollution). In addition, it also provides the necessary flexibility in terms of working hours (e.g. tempo-rary interruption of work for one hour to pick up the children from school).

(Company Representative, Netherlands)

Before the company would offer different compensations for trips that exceeded working hours; economic, free time or nothing! Creating comparative grievances and pressuring the workers by alleging that it is voluntary to travel when it is not... it is necessary for their task development but the extra hours are not compensated. It is necessary to regulate this situation to avoid abuse.

(Company Representative, Spain)

30 31


Home-work should be based on the principles of voluntariness and reversal of evidence: both the worker and employer should agree, and in case of non-agreement, the employer should provide clear evidence as to why home-based telework is not possible;

Clear rules are needed as regards the working conditions and health and safety requirements of telework places;

Rules regarding cybersecurity and data protection are also important.

However, as mentioned previously, the survey also shows that the regulation of telework varies significantly from company to company both within the same country and between countries. It therefore seems very important to address the issue of working time or tele-work at different levels of workers participation. For example, survey respondents highlighted that model-agreements on ICT-based mobile work or telework had proved very helpful for negotiations with man-agement. Trade unions providing expertise and know-how was also highlighted as good practice. In larger companies, many respondents referred to company-wide framework agreements or rules that estab-lish a ground for local bargaining and agreements.

Again, agreements reached in multinational companies at the cross-border level are an important source of sup-port for local level consultation and respective agreements in countries where workers participation bodies and trade unions are in a weaker position. This seems necessary, since working time and telework issues have so far been addressed quite unevenly across country clusters and individual countries as the follow-ing tables show.

The differences between countries are not only striking in terms of addressing the topic of working time and work-life balance by information and con-sultation as well as company-level agree-ments, but also when it comes to trade union internal activities on the issue: For example, while only 11% of Polish trade union respondents indi-cated that working time/work-life balance issues had been addressed in their union organisations (e.g. by working groups), 44% of Swedish and 37% of Italian participants indicated the same.

In the qualitative responses to the ETUC survey (topics addressed so far, experiences of good and bad practice, sug-gestions on topics that need to be addressed), participants also intensively commented on these issues. According to these comments from trade unions and company representation bodies, if facilitating framework conditions and rules at company level and beyond have been pre-established, digitalisation can provide opportunities and added-value for workers as regards working time. On the other hand, the ETUC survey gathered a lot of evidence and experiences indicating that digitalisation can worsen working conditions in terms of working time and work-life balance if such regulations are not in place or new rules are not defined. This polarised picture of practice and experiences can be seen in the contrasting quotes from survey responses presented in this report.

With regard to home-based or mobile telework, many respondents highlighted existing rules and criteria defined in collective agreements or company framework agreements that they deemed to be important in the context of ‘fair telework’. The following were particularly emphasised:

Digital or online work must be regarded as working time and there should be appropriate remuneration or compensatory time off rules;

There must be clear rules on how to count working time at home or away from the office; Rules and regulations in company agreements, regulation and collective agreements should take into account

that the work of many employees is increasingly being done outside the normal workplace;

Bad application of teleworking. Workers are overburdened and end up performing assigned work outside the stipulated schedule that nobody controls. This new way of working is increasingly wide-spread in many jobs, but it is governed by regulation that isn’t sufficiently clear or developed. The fact of being able to be permanently consigned can cause abuse: the worker is considered to be available to solve whatever arises.


Our company handles telework in a very liberal way and we have been able to achieve a very good group level agree-ment between the works council and the employer on telework. Up to 80% of working time can be done at home.

(Company Workers Representative, Germany)

32 33


From the qualitative responses to the survey, it is also possible to identify a number of key principles highlighted by respondents as regards fair solutions to the right to disconnect, namely:

Explicit right to be unavailable outside normal working time; Right to disconnect during sickness; Right to disconnect during holidays; Shutdown of email servers outside working hours and clear definition of

exceptions; Rules and regulation regarding working on company-specific platforms or B2C

platforms, in particular at unusual hours/working time; Right of workers to deactivate the GPS function on digital devices; Rules regarding breaks and rest times when being available online; Rules regarding the use of private or work smartphones for business activities

during and after normal working hours.

RIGHT TO DISCONNECT – COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT OF CCOO AND AXA SEGUROS IN SPAIN

The Spanish Workers’ Commissions (CCOO), which is the majority trade union at Axa Seguros, signed the first collective agreement recognising the right for workers to disconnect from relevant technological implements outside of working hours. The agreement is binding between 2017 and 2020. The new clause, the first of its kind in Spain, says that “Axa recognises the right of workers to not respond to e-mails or work messages out-side of working hours, except in the case of force majeure or in exceptional circumstances”.

The insurance firm’s new collective agreement recognises employees’ right to turn off their mobile phones outside of working hours. The agreement also looks to help workers achieve a work-life balance, by developing distance work and flexible working hours. With the company’s agreement often considered a point of reference for the sector, the new features contained therein are expected to set a new trend and further encourage com-panies to adopt measures allowing for the right to disconnect. This initiative from Axa comes at a time when the Spanish labour ministry has been showing interest in the law which recently came into force in France.

Source: Planet Labor, 24 July 2017, nº10317 – www.planetlabor.co

Contrastingly, according to survey respondents, the topic of telework and ICT mobile work tended to be addressed a lot more frequently from the angle of company-level workers participation and in particu-lar by company-level agreements, which are comparatively frequent in Belgium (17% of respondents), Spain (17%), France (25%), Aus-tria (27%), Finland (26%), Germany (37%) and Italy (51%).

Concerning telework and ICT mobile work, there are also significant differences as regards country clus-ters: As the following figure shows, 46% of respondents from Eastern Europe indicated that the topic had not so far been addressed within trade unions or by any form of work-ers participation. This contrasts with the 23% of Nordic participants who made the same statement. And while only 13% of Eastern respond-ents reported the establishment of a collective agreement at company or sector level addressing this issue, around 32% in Southern Europe and 27% in Western Europe reported that collective agreements existed at either level.

RIGHT TO DISCONNECT

The right to disconnect is an issue related to digitalisation that has been quite prominent in public debates in some EU countries (Germany, France, and Italy, for example). In several companies from well-known sectors, such as the automotive, banking, insurance or IT sectors, agreements between unions/works councils have been concluded on the workers’ right to disconnect during specific times, namely the evening, at weekends or during holidays. The right to disconnect has also been negotiated at sectoral level, within the French postal and logistics sector for example, as well as in telecommunications or in the Finnish financial service sector.

It should be noted that, in France, five major trade unions were involved in drafting a report on labour and digital transformation, commissioned by the then Minister of Labour. As one of a series of recommendations, the ‘right to disconnect’ was included in the report and was turned into law in 2017.

However, the ETUC survey shows that the right to disconnect has only been addressed by agreements at company level or higher in a limited number of countries, namely France, Italy and Denmark. In all other countries the topic is still under-addressed, and, on average, more than 40% of all survey respondents indicated that the topic had as of yet not been touched on at all by workers participation practices.

Many employees in our company have the feeling of being online at any time and always on call. They read and respond to emails also at the weekend.

(Company Worker Representative, MNC, Switzerland)

The new PCs are all portable: laptops. On the one hand, it makes it easier for a professional to complete their tasks at home, but it also incurs a series of overtime hours of effective work that are neither documented nor remunerated. Working time at home, on week-ends, nights, holidays, etc. is not documented.


It would be important to include the following in collective agreements: Working time in context of digital work, the right to be offline, rules for home office work and regulation of working anywhere.

(Company Worker Repre-sentative, Germany)

34 35


Also, differences between country groups and single countries are not as pronounced as they were for other topics. It should be noted that the issue of adjusting occupational profiles and qualification practices is the only topic where the profile of Central and Eastern European countries is quite similar to the other country groups. In fact, the share of respondents from Central and Eastern Europe who reported that the issue had been addressed within their trade union organisation is higher than in all other country clusters. As regards information and consultation, Central and Eastern Europe are even scoring higher than the Southern and Nordic countries. However, when it comes to the issue of further training and acquiring new skills to match new requirements caused by digitalisation, the differ-ences between country groups and countries are more marked.

Furthermore, and as shown by the fol-lowing figure, country-specific results call attention to differences in the tools of workers participation, namely as regards information and consul-tation versus collective agreements at company and/or sector level. The high shares of respondents reporting on sectoral collective agreements in France and Denmark are particularly noteworthy here.

TRAINING AND QUALIFICATION

As highlighted by one interview partner in the context of the survey, “Digitalisation creates losers (older work-ers, workers that can be replaced by machines/robots) and winners (‘agile’ workers, professionals, IT/software specialists).” In this context, massive investments in general as well as vocational or continuous adult education and training systems are nec-essary in order to avoid large proportions of the workforce being left behind during digital transformation processes. Furthermore, measures in the context of company-specific training and HR planning activities are also necessary. The following needs were especially highlighted by survey participants:

(re-) classifying pay groups according to new digital tasks and job profiles; adapting initial and further training programmes at company level as well

as within occupational profiles (national, sector-level); providing all workers with basic digital skills, including workers less

affected by digitalisation and older workers; re- und upskilling workers whose jobs are automatized in order to protect

them against redundancy (‘Rationalisierungsschutz’); integrating new occupational profiles into company specific training, skills

development and qualification programmes; integrating digital tools and methods into initial and further training

courses and programmes.

Survey participants also highlighted that there should be a right to training for every worker, even when this has no direct benefit for the company. Furthermore, it was stressed that continuous training should not only be offered to ‘older’ workers, or be limited to short periods, and that there was a need for regular updating and skills refreshment.

Considering the high relevance of training and qualification, which is an impor-tant field of activities for social partners as well as workers representation bodies at company level in most EU Member States, the quantitative results of the ETUC survey show that relatively high shares of the respondents indicated that the issue of changes in occupational profiles and qualification requirements caused by digitalisation, as well as issues linked to further education, training and skills acquisition had been addressed by information and consultation as well as company- or sector-level agreements.

More than 27% of all respondents indicated that changes in occupational profiles and qualification requirements in the context of digitalisation had been addressed by information and consultation;

When it comes to further training and skills acquisition the respective share was even higher with nearly 29%;

Nearly 8% of respondents reported that the issue of change in occupational profiles and qualification requirements had been addressed by company agreements (as regards sector agreements the respective share is 3.5%);

"At company level there is a need for a longer-term HR strategy, including qualifi-cation/skills development programmes. These must reflect new business strategy orientations and the respec-tive skill needs"

(Supervisory board member, German based MNC)

The Danish social partners in their recent industry sector

agreement have agreed that 200 million DKK should be made available for qualifica-tion measures in the sector in response to digitalisation.


The works council of the Merck KG has initiated a "Haus der Arbeitswelten" ('House for the Worlds of Work). This is an approach for a comprehensive shaping of technological change in the pharmaceutical and chemical sector. The initi-ative addresses education, employee data protection, health and safety and strategic HR planning.

(Company Workers Represent-ative, Austria)

In the chemical industry we have agreed a collective agreement that includes fur-ther training rules in order to address the new requirements of digitalisation.

(Trade Union Representative, Germany)

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As regards individual countries, the situation in Germany where nearly 40% of respondents refer to agreements (most of them at company level and only 2% at sector level) on technologies to monitor worker performance or behaviour and respectively high percentages in Austria and Italy contrast sharply with the situ-ation in France, Poland and the Czech Republic.

It should be noted that survey comments from Central and Eastern Europe in particular, but also from Spain and France (especially from smaller national companies – in contrast to MNCs) highlighted that difficulties in negotiating agreements on IT or data security were mostly caused lack of interest or even opposition on part of the employer.

Further comments and examples of good practice provided by survey participants also highlighted the need for workers representation bodies to gather compe-tences and expertise in relation to new technologies that monitor performance and behaviour. Respondents from Southern and Eastern Europe in particular remarked that this expertise was often missing within their own company-level bodies.

EMPLOYEE DATA PROTECTION

Digitalisation is about big data. New business models in the IT, platform or app economy, and increasingly in more traditional sectors such as the automo-bile (connected driving), building (smart housing), facilities and energy (smart grids), and healthcare and hospital sectors – to mention but a few – are based on the gathering of data and its use as raw material for new services and busi-ness activities. Big data is made possible by cloud computing as well as massive increases in storage and bandwidth access and capacities. Within both the industrial and the services sector, new digital tools and automation processes are massively gathering data on individual workers and work-related activities. It is often unclear how such data is used, especially by external service providers and social platforms, and whether or not it is merged, stored and transferred to third parties.

Therefore, the issue of personal data protection and regulation as well as the establishment of rules regarding the use of data and technologies that can be used to monitor work performance and/or behaviour has been a major concern for workers and their interested organisations at company and sector level but also for society as a whole.

Considering this, it is unsurprising that issues such as the introduction of new technologies to monitor worker performance and behaviour or the protection of personal data gathered in the context of ICT work, automation pro-cesses or other production or service activities rank high on the agenda of trade union organisations and company level workers representation bodies. On average, 23% of survey participants indicated that the topic had been dealt with in the context of information and consultation procedures at company level. Furthermore, relatively high shares of respondents indicated that company level agreements had been concluded with the employer – 17% of respondents reported agreements on the introduction of monitoring/surveillance technologies and 19% of partici-pants stated that a company agreement on the protection of personal employee data had been negotiated with the employer.

However, there are once again quite pronounced differences between country clusters and individual countries regarding both issues. Dif-ferences emerge in particular with regard to the outcomes of informa-tion and consultation processes at company level: While around 24% of survey participants from Western European countries indicated that a company level agreement had been negotiated, the share in the Eastern European region was only 3%, with 9% in Southern Europe and 13% in the Nordic countries.

Surveillance of employees has increased. There is a need for protection.

(Company Representative, Poland)

There is a need to restrict the arbitrary gathering of personal and surveillance data on workers.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, France)

At IBM in Austria, we have a comprehensive and detailed net of company agreements ('Betriebsvereinbarungen') covering topics such as working time, personal data protection and home mobile work. There is also discus-sion both with the Austrian country management of the company on a level playing field in the supervisory board and with European manage-ment in the European Works Council. Furthermore, we are well connected with our trade union experts as well as peers in other companies.

(Company worker representa-tive, Austria)

At De VoorZorg Antwerp we have a group level agreement that defines clear rules for the surveillance of the employ-ees’ internet activities and for restrictions and general rules of internet usage.

(Company Representative, Belgium)

The agreement at Telenor ASA includes rules on the surveillance and perfor-mance monitoring of the workers. There needs to be a compromise between new ICT-technologies and the workers’ personal integrity and autonomy.(Trade Union Representative, Norway)

Adaptation of the services of clinical files, admission ser-vices, control of storage and supplies, some surgical and radio-diagnosis techniques. Both in the public sector and private sector.(Trade Union Representative, Spain)

38 39


RECONVERSION - COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT OF ROBERT BOSCH ESPANA, FABRICA IN ARANJUEZ (2015-2017)

1. (…) in accordance with current regulations, the Company is committed and the staff accepts, an appropriate action of reconversion of the workers, adapting them, applying the appropriate sociological and training tech-niques, to the new productive needs, in such a way that nobody is outdated by technical progress, furthering away the risk of possible technological unemployment.

2. In view of the need to restructure services and jobs, the readjustment of the personnel affected will be spe-cifically defined in:

• Transferring workers from indirect positions to direct positions.• Transferring professionals from atypical jobs to positions of typical crafts in the Company.• Training these workers in the techniques of their new positions.• Training, in general, all personnel affected by technical advances and organization, for a satisfactory per-

formance of their mission.

3. Those who are affected by the conversion, will not lose the category reached in the Company and will keep their bas salary and fixed salary supplements, being for the rest of their remuneration subject to what is estab-lished with respect to the position that they occupy.

4. The reconversion process will be carried out by the Training and Psychology Services of the Company, in collaboration with the representatives of the Workers of the Company.

Source: Fundación 1o Mayo, unpublished report on Spain in the context of the DIRESOC project.

Trade unions in Finland pointed to the joint social partners’ initiative in the financial sector—“Healthy Finan-cial Sector»—that is based on a cooperation between trade unions and employer organisations. The initiative aims to develop new operating models for the work environment in the financial sector, which is being challenged by digitalisation and new digital service channels in particular (see: http://www.finanssiala.fi/en/current-topics/future-of-work/Pages/default.aspx). The objective of the project is to increase work well-being, productivity and competitiveness in the sector while taking into account the importance of social dialogue and collective bargaining between the social partners.

The concepts of future of work and social protection of workers were also at the core of the practices put forward by trade union and company representatives in Belgium. They highlighted that it is not only necessary to discuss the digital transformation process from the perspective of new technologies, but also to consider the impact it might have on quality of life in Belgian society as a whole. At company level, trade union and company repre-sentatives have underlined the importance of systematically monitoring relevant IT projects and their impact on employment and quality of work. This should serve as a basis for accompanying measures, internal job transitions and training measures.

A similar approach was reported by trade union representatives in Germany, who pointed to the regional ‘NRW 2020’ initiative. One component of this initiative is a practical support tool for works councils that enables them to map and identify the company divisions and/or workplaces that will be affected by digitalisation and ‘Industry 4.0’ restructuring projects. Based on the resulting data, works councils are able to develop measures to foster further training and better personnel planning, thereby potentially avoiding redundancies.

Thus, in order to negotiate company-level agreements with the employer/management side, workers representa-tives and/or company level-trade union committees need the support of sector or cross-sectoral unions. The lack of such support or capacities might also contribute to the relatively low shares of company or sectoral level agree-ments on new technologies and personal data protection in some country clusters and countries. This is illustrated by workers participation activities as regard personal data protection (Figure 34).

JOB AND SOCIAL SECURITY – SUBSTITUTION, ANTICIPATION AND FUTURE OF WORK

As mentioned previously in the section on the risks linked to digitalisation, job losses due to automatization and computerisation remains the single most important concern for trade unions and workers representatives. This trend was strongly confirmed in both the workshop discussions and the inter-views carried out with EWC and supervisory board members. However, interview partners and survey participants also noted in their comments that it was diffi-cult to pinpoint the quantitative impact of digitalisation on employment because employment losses were often not only related to automatization but also to other changes that effect employment levels (mergers, outsourcing, productivity gains, etc.).

It came to light in both ETUC workshop discussions and interviews with work-ers representatives in supervisory boards and senior EWC and SE Works Council Members, that discussions with the highest level of management are crucial in terms of anticipating change, identifying potential job losses caused by automa-tization, and agreeing on measures to avoid redundancies, namely upskilling and reskilling initiatives, internal job transfers, or financial compensation programmes for employees who see their jobs downgraded by automatization.

Survey respondents highlighted a number of good practices in terms of regional, sectoral or company-level initiatives led by trade unions in cooperation with social partners and further actors. A common feature of these practices is the search for a ‘Fair Deal’ in managing the digital transformation process, i.e. guaranteeing decent working conditions and social protection for employees and workers, irre-spective of their actual contractual status.

Many respondents also referred to the need to develop company-wide frame-works and orientations for socially responsible restructuring that consider the specific challenges linked to digitalisation. The agreement on restructur-ing/’reconversion’ at the Robert Bosch company in Aranjuez was pointed out by company representatives in Spain as a positive example of such restructuring. Indeed, this agreement contains a number of important elements that help to address the impact of digitalisation on jobs and employment in a pro-active way.

Italian trade unions mentioned another example of good practice: the pact/agree-ment concluded between the regional government of Emilia Romagna and trade unions, employer organisations, public education providers, the University as well as provincial and local authorities. The agreement aims to foster economic and technological change while still taking into account the quality of work and employment in the region and a high level of social protection for workers.

This is a very serious issue just now in the finance sector, where digitalisation has caused 1/5 of total jobs to disappear and/or change over the last couple of years.

(Trade Union Representative, Finland)

Digitalisation programmes have resulted in the loss of 170 jobs in commercial divisions in Germany. It is not possible to provide similar figures for the productive divisions. The current wave of digitalisation will have significant effects on admin-istrative staff levels and specific occupational groups (for example maintenance workers).

(Worker Representative in the supervisory board of a German chemical MNC)

ENGIE signed a European agreement on socially acceptable restructuring related to technological change.

(Trade Union Representative, Belgium)

In the chemical industries, a collective framework agreement on protection against job losses caused by automation ('Rational-isierungsschutz`) exists: Employees whose jobs are automatized and who have to accept a new job within the sector at a lower wage will receive temporary financial compensation.

(Trade Union Representative, Germany)

40 41


As regards good practices, relatively few concrete exam-ples were mentioned by survey respondents. Those that were mainly related to company agreements with management on the subject of updating and adjusting risk assessments at workplace level, training and awareness raising measures for managers regarding stress and burn-out symptoms, or joint worker – employer work-ing groups or health initiatives.

This low number of reported examples indicates a lack, not only of public debate, but also of scientific research and knowledge of the impacts of digitalisation on health and safety. Certainly, there is a need for specialised analysis and empirical evidence.

COMPETENCES AND REPRESENTATION OF ‘PERIPHERAL’ WORKERS

Trade union representatives and company workers representatives in trade union committees, works councils, supervisory boards and transnational information and consultation bodies such as EWCs and SE Works Councils were also asked about their practices in relation to the interest representation of ‘peripheral’ workers such as freelancers, dependent self-employed, and sub-contract workers. This question was posed because digitalisation, via online-platforms or specialised B2B service providers, is providing a growing number of often highly qualified workers that are self-employed or work as freelancers for companies, both in the national and global context.

Survey results show that for many trade unions and com-pany representation bodies, this topic and the representa-tion of atypical work is a highly relevant topic. However, the differences between countries are quite stark: On average, nearly 25% of survey respond-ents reported that these issues of representation had been discussed in their trade union organisation. At company level however, the issue seems to be less relevant – only around 12% of respondents indicated that it had been a matter of information and consulta-tion with the employer so far, whereas around 4% of respondents reported the existence a company-level agreement on the topic (only slightly above 1% of participants reported the same about sectoral collective agreements).

HEALTH AND SAFETY

The impacts of digitalisation on health and safety are serious—stress, psycho-social risks or burn-out resulting from strain related to ICT-based mobile work, extensive availability or increase in time-pressure and new tasks—and high up on the agenda of both trade unions and company level workers representation bodies. On average, 21% of participants in the ETUC survey reported that health and safety issues had been addressed by specific bodies within their trade union organisation, and nearly 28% reported that the topic was regularly dealt with in information and consultation procedures at com-pany level. While around 11% of respondents indicated that a company level agreement existed on health and safety issues, nearly 5% of participants men-tioned a sectoral agreement on the topic—one of the highest shares of any topic covered by the survey.

These relatively high figures are not surprising, since worker health and safety is one of the core competencies of worker representation at company level according to both national frameworks of information and consultation as well as occupational health and safety legislation. Furthermore, as was mentioned in the previous section, a large number of survey participants commented that, for many workers, digitalisation is linked either to potential or very real changes in their individual work environment, resulting in increased insecurity, new workloads or job intensification.

These comments highlighted the incidence of stress, burn-out and psycho-social risks resulting from a variety factors, mostly increased job demands, blurring of working and private life due to the need to be online at any time, or pressure to do more on the basis of the same work schedule.

A lot of respondents also pointed out that digitalisation leads to an impoverish-ment of social relations and communication within the company: Direct interaction is replaced by communication via electronic channels, internal platforms, ‘social’ media or messenger services. Additionally, it was mentioned that flexible work-ing time patterns, shift patterns or work-on demand processes were increasingly being organised via social media or messenger groups.

In terms of country-based differences, the following figure shows that, similarly to other topics, health and safety issues have so far been addressed most frequently in Western and Northern European countries as well as Italy (which in fact has the highest share of collective agreements at company as well as sectoral level).6

6 With regard to the quite marked differences in terms of information and consultation, it should be noted that survey participants were asked to indicate the most important form of the workers participation, i.e. it was not possible to indicate more than one tool of workers participation (this might explain why for example in Denmark the share of those respondents selecting information and consultation is relatively low).

Working conditions in the public sector are only apparently made easier by digitization, as stress factors are actually increasing due to the rapid processing pressure.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, Austria)

Total surveillance of car data are used to put pressure on employees, e.g. with regard to the frequency and length of breaks, fuel consumption, etc.

(Works Council Chairperson, large company, Austria)

You are expected to pick-up the phone at any time and reply to emails as soon as they reach your platform.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, Sweden)

Workers are closely con-trolled by ICT.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, Poland)

There is an increase in the digitalisation of communi-cation, for example in the context of appraisal inter-views or e-learning. This results in an impoverishment of social processes.

(Company Workers Repre-sentative, Austria)

Workers in warehouses for example are permanently connected via headphones to receive instructions.

(Trade Union Representative, France)

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6 ALSO TRADE UNIONS HAVE TO ADJUST!

7 (a) Trade unions should more actively campaign on the issue of digitalisation and the future of work; (b) Trade unions have to change their organizing and recruitment principles and practice in order to become attractive for employees in the digital economy, e.g. ICT mobile workers, online platform workers; (c) Trade union have to develop new competences in order to make better use of digital technologies, e.g. in communication or lobbying.

In one section of the ETUC survey, respondents within trade union organisations and company level employee representation bodies were asked about the key challenges trade unions are facing. Apart from three predefined answers7, participants were invited to comment freely on this topic. More than 130 respondents made use of this possibility.

SHOULD TRADE UNIONS CAMPAIGN MORE ON DIGITALISATION?

On average, over 95% of respondents agreed with the fact that trade unions should more actively address and campaign on the issue of digitalisation and the future of work.

However, as the figure shows, there is significant variation in responses between countries. While certain coun-tries such as Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Austria and Spain showed agreement rates of nearly 100%, other countries such as France or Poland, counted a significant minority of respondents that were more critical of this question. Based on the quali-tative comments and responses to the question, two reasons explaining this hesitation emerge: First, as was the case in Poland, many respondents indi-cated that digitalisation had not yet emerged as a ‘real-life issue’ in their company or sector. Secondly, as was the case in France, a large share of the respondents who disagreed mainly regarded ‘digitalisation’ as a catchword for the flexibilisation of working time and employment contracts—a trend that requires strong trade union action at company or sector level, but not necessarily new types of campaigning activities.

CHANGE IN ORGANISING AND RECRUITMENT PRACTICES

When asked about the need to change organising and recruitment principles and practices in order to become more attractive to employ-ees in the digital economy (ICT mobile workers, online platform workers, etc.), an overwhelming majority of respondents was strongly

As Figure 37 shows, there are quite strong differences between countries regarding workers participa-tion on the issue of peripheral workers representation by trade unions or company level representation bodies. It seems that the issue is most relevant in countries such as Italy, Austria, Germany and Finland. However, it should be noted that the relatively low shares in countries such as France, Belgium or Spain do not necessarily indicate that the topic is less relevant in these countries. These results should be interpreted in conjunction with further findings made by the survey regarding the challenges faced by trade unions, including the need to organise and represent new forms of digital workers such as crowdworkers or online platform workers (see the following section).

Advanced Technology will be upon us whether we like it or not. Useless cam-paigning for or against. What is needed is long term vision and information on the time frame of the future changes.

(Trade Union Representative, UK)

Digitization processes must be inclusive, you cannot expect to create advanced systems without first having the certainty that all workers are able to access them.

(Trade Union Representative, Italy)

44 45


New forms of activities linked to public relations, lobbying and communication were also highlighted by partici-pants from all country clusters as good practice: The examples given were specific websites providing information, advice and examples of good practice in the field of crowdwork/online platform work that have been developed by Austrian, German and Swedish trade unions (http://faircrowd.work/). Similar initiatives were reported by trade unions in Denmark, Italy and Spain in the context of this study.

Other trade union representatives reported a need to use social net-works, messenger services or platforms such as ‘change.org’ for campaigns and lobbying more pro-actively. Online platforms were also mentioned as a good tool for networking amongst company-level employee interest representation bodies.

Forms of electronic communication and the internet were highlighted by Nordic and Belgian trade unions as an important way to exchange examples of good practice, spread informa-tion about innovative collective agreements and sharing thoughts and information about activities and campaigns.

However, survey participants stressed that new forms of digital communication should not be regarded as an alter-native for physical meetings and exchanges as well as direct, face-to-face communication.

in favour. There was also very little difference between countries, and the issue of organising and recruitment practices in particu-lar as regards online platform workers, workers in the app economy and dependent self-employed workers received the highest number of qualitative comments, ranging from the establishment of digital platforms for organising and recruitment to rethinking trade union membership fee practices. Some comments were also quite contra-dictory, illustrating the broad range of positions within the European trade union movements: While for some, the attractiveness of trade unions and their new recruitment and organ-ising practices are essential questions for trade union survival in the future, other comments stated that ICT and digital workers were also workers and there was therefore no need to develop specific recruitment and organising strategies.

BUILD NEW COMPETENCES AND MAKE BETTER USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

As shown by the following figure, a clear majority of respondents agreed that there was a need for trade unions to develop new com-petences and make better use of digital technologies in the context of communi-cation and lobbying work. On average, around 95% of survey respondents thought that trade unions needed to engage more strongly in dig-ital communication by using interactive websites, online platforms or other forms of electronic communication.

Trade unions need to change their organizational structures and recruit-ment strategies in order to become more attractive to workers in the digital economy, e.g. mobile IT workers or crowdworkers.

(Trade Union Representative, Austria)

Trade unions should increase public awareness about new technologies. They should raise awareness through social networks and develop new methods of communication within union organizations, modernize and try to sign collective agreements in the company to accompany the changes.

(Trade Union Representative, Nether-lands)

46 47


Platforms that provide physical work in a local area such as driving a car, delivering food, cleaning, mending, repairing for private households.

Platforms that organize remote work («in the cloud»), for example transcribing audio snippets, describing photos, etc.

Furthermore, there are platforms that provide or pool more specialized and higher qualified work, often in classical areas of independent occupations (such as design, photography, casting agencies, etc.)

As the following figure shows, more than three quar-ters (76%) of the survey participants were working for platforms in a local area and only 17% were working remotely «in the cloud». As regards the ‘others’ groups, participants reported such activities as cooking on demand (restaurants, private households), working in different warehouses or journalism.

In terms of their country of residence, most platform work-ers participating in the survey were from France (30%), Germany (17%) and Belgium (15%). Further respondents resided in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Poland.

Nearly half of these online platform workers belonged to the 20-29 age group (46%) and around one quarter (26%) belonged to the slightly older age group of 30-39. Only 5% of online workers were under 20 years old and about 20% were 40 and older, including around 5% that were over the age of 60.

Around 40% of respondents had been working for an online platform for less than a year (40%), and a similar propor-tion (39%) had been engaged in platform work for one to three years, while only around 20% had been doing online platform work for more than three years. The majority of survey participants (63%) was working for only one single platform, while one third worked for several platforms.

As regards average monthly working hours for online plat-forms workers, the situation is quite diverse: around 33% of participants reported working only 11-40 hours per month and 11% commented that they worked even fewer hours per month. However, 31% of the respondents indi-cated that they worked via platform between 41 and 100 hours per month and one quarter reported that they worked more than 100 hours per month via online platform(s). How-ever, the results clearly show that online platform work certainly is not the only or even main source of income for the overall majority of respondents.

This contrasts slightly with the survey participants’ reported labour situation (Figure 44): When asked if they were engaged in other employment in addition to working via an online platform, 41% of the participants reported that they had no other income. The second largest group reported that they were students (20%) and only slightly more than 20% indicated that they either had a part-time job (7%) or were working full-time (15%).

7 WHAT ONLINE PLATFORM WORKERS AND CROWDWORKERS THINK – STRONG MESSAGES FOR TRADE UNION ORGANISATIONS

8 See: CCOO: La dimensió de l’economia de plataforma a Catalunya. Enquesta sobre treball mitjançant plataformes digitals, published on 18 de juny de 2018.

9 See the info on the LO Denmark website: https://lo.dk/en/historic-agreement-digital-platform-concludes-collective-agreement/.

During 2017 and 2018—the ETUC survey’s implementation period—the issue of online platform work, of working in the ‘app’ or ‘gig’ economy or simply as a crowdworker has been quite a prominent topic in public debate across Europe. This debate was triggered by the business prac-tices of global companies such as Uber, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and the emergence of platform-based service providers for private

households (e.g. cleaning) or food delivery. 2017 and 2018 also saw the emergence of debate on the poor work-ing conditions of online platform workers – in addition to pay issues, the total lack of social security and other work-related protection mechanisms were highlighted in particular by trade unions and self-organised workers protests. Many of these protests aimed to fight for basic workers’ rights and force online platforms to accept their status as an employer (with certain obligations and responsibilities).

Over the course of the implementation of the ETUC project, a number of trade union-led initiatives have emerged or have been presented at the project workshops, including initiatives to organize crowdworkers in Denmark, a German-Austrian-Swedish trade union initiative for fair crowdwork and the signing of a code of conduct for plat-form providers, or larger surveys conducted, for example, by the CCOO trade union on the scope of platform work in Catalonia.8 In April 2018, one of the first ever collective agreements between an online platform and a trade union organisation was signed: The agreement between the Danish cleaning services platform, ‘Hilfr’ and 3F, the United Federation of Danish workers.9

A special section of the ETUC survey was dedicated to online platform workers: a short questionnaire, the main purpose of which was to learn more about workers’ motivation and reasons to work via an online platform, their views as regards working conditions and their suggestions to improve them. In connection with this last point, the survey also included some questions regarding online platform workers’ expectations in terms of collective organ-isation and trade union representation.

ONLINE PLATFORM WORKERS THAT PARTICIPATED IN THE SURVEY

A total of 54 online platform workers participated in the ETUC survey. This rather small number can be explained by the fact that no specific activities were carried out to reach this target group. Most participants were invited either directly by ETUC member unions in different countries or became aware of the survey through websites, public meetings or workshops on the topic.

In order to determine the profile and background of the survey participants, it is important to look at the type of online platform work they are engaged in. Indeed, online platform work broadly falls into quite different groups:

"It is not a business of its own, it is a job."

(Survey participant, working with a platform providing local services for more than 2-3 years)

48 49


In one of the survey’s more surprising results regarding motivation, around 75% of respondents indicated that they worked for an online platform because they liked the flexibility and autonomy of this type of work. This is particularly interesting since the survey pop-ulation was recruited via trade union channels and – as will be shown below – is well aware and critical of platform working conditions. Considering this, the high proportion of workers who appreciated the flexibility and autonomy of platform work is quite remarkable.

WORKING CONDITIONS

Online platform workers are also well aware of both the positive and the negative aspects of working conditions in this type of work: Generally, more than half of all respondents appreciated aspects such as com-munication with other workers via social media (nearly 75%) as well as in the real world (more than 50%). Nearly 50% of all respondents also felt that, all in all, platform work has more benefits than it does disadvantages.

On the other hand, platform workers across all countries expressed, with very similar comments, criticism of their working conditions, mentioning their treatment not as human beings but as anonymous production factors (more than 75%) or the fact that they faced more social security risks than other workers (more than 80%). Additionally, more than 80% of respondents thought that the operating systems, workflows and algorithms in use were not transparent, while only one third of the survey participants felt that their remuneration was fair.

As shown in Figure 45, most of the survey participants considered themselves to be either employees (25%) or platform workers (24%). Only 14% would describe themselves as workers in the app economy and a small group of 4% would accept the classification of ‘crowdworker’.

By contrast to this self-perception as workers or employees, only around one quarter of the survey participants regarded themselves as self-employed and a further 4% saw themselves as freelancers. A small fraction of survey respondents chose the ‘others’ category, mentioning the status of temporary agency work and ‘dependent’ or ‘false’ self-employment.

MOTIVATIONS TO WORK VIA ONLINE PLATFORMS

The results of the ETUC survey in relation to online platform workers’ motivation to engage in this type of work are quite interesting and include some food for thought for trade union organisations as well as other key actors on the labour market.Firstly, the survey shows that working via platforms is a major but not exclusive source of income for most par-ticipants. Similarly, a high share of around 75% of respondents indicated that they worked via platforms as an opportunity to earn extra money.

Around 60% of respondents were of the opinion that working for an online platform would be a temporary situ-ation for them. This likely relates to the fact that working via online platforms is mostly not a voluntary decision: 50% of the respondents indicated that they worked via a platform because they were not able to find another job.

It is temporary because it is very hard to endure this work rhythm. In the end the legs cannot stand and when that comes I'll look for another job.

(Platform worker for less than a year 20-29 years, Belgium)

At the moment I work for three platforms, waiting for a better job to come along. I'm looking forward to leaving the bike.

(Platform worker for less than a year, 20-29 years old, Spain)

While regularizing my immigration status, from which it follows that I did not have the relevant documentation, I was able to use an account on a digital platform. This situation allowed me to gen-erate BASIC income (food, mobile income, health insurance).

(Platform worker for less than a year, 30-39 years old, Spain)

Biking around and getting money for it could be so nice if all the companies on the market were not endlessly exploitative and unreliable.

(Platform worker for less than a year, 20-29 years old, Germany)

50 51


These positive perceptions of trade unionism are confirmed by the high shares of respondents in favour of the idea that trade unions should certify online platforms (70%) and even support the creation of online platforms (70%) as illustrated in Figure 48. This last suggestion should be interpreted in context: Many survey respondents are in favour of cooperatives and other forms of mutual organisations for independent workers (for example, in Bel-gium, respondents highlighted the SMartBe cooperative that organises payments and offers affordable protection to freelancers and the self-employed).10

Legal protection and social security issues are key concerns for online platform workers (which might also explain the strong interest in cooperatives): As the following figure shows, 100% of survey respondents would be in favour of trade unions supporting platform workers through legal assistance on work-related matters. 100% of survey respondents also suggested that trade unions should work for a better protection of platform workers and provide advice on income issues and social security questions. Around 90% of online workers who participated in the survey wished that trade unions would provide support for platforms workers negotiating with owners. Another issue of interest is training and skills development – 80% of respondents thought that trade unions should support training and skills development and provide advice on the subject.

10 SMartBe – Societe Mutuelle pour artistes – was founded in 1998 and is a cooperative of freelancers that supports its members by providing affordable health insurance and retirement contributions, help with paperwork and guaranteed on-time payments. A lot of platform workers engaged in local business services are organised with SMartBE. As of summer 2018, SMart had members in nine European countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK, Hungary, Austria and Sweden. See: https://smartbe.be/fr/

The employment status of online platform workers is a key issue that was repeatedly highlighted in com-ments. Excluding some very few exceptions (all of them working remotely via the internet and in free occupations such as translations or managing local services), respondents emphasised the contradiction between their legal status as self-employed and their experience as dependent workers. Some participants also commented that while they felt like independent workers, they didn’t have the same rights as self-em-ployed workers, namely setting their own rates, declaring business expenses and making decisions about working hours. All these are decided by the plat-forms they work with.

EXPECTATIONS FROM TRADE UNIONS

One of the more surprising results of the survey amongst online platform workers relates to what the respondents expect from trade unions. The fact that these survey participants had a generally positive feeling towards the organisation of collective interests is not surprising in itself– as mentioned previously, most respondents became involved in the survey through trade union spon-sored events, social networks and other initiatives. What was striking, however, was that survey participants articulated quite clear and strong expectations as regards the (potential) added-value of trade union involvement in online platform work and the provision of concrete support services for platform workers.

As shown below in Figure 48:

83% of respondents suggested (60% of them strongly) that trade unions should negotiate with online platforms;

Around 80% of respondents thought that trade unions should mediate conflicts between platform workers and platform owners;

More than 80% of respondents thought that trade unions should organise platform workers; a similar share of respondents agreed with the idea that trade unions should support the self-organisation of online platform workers.

These high percentages in survey responses as regards the role of trade unions is remarkable and indicate a strong feeling of trust in trade union legitimacy and integrity.

I did work for more than a year for XY Amsterdam. Started this job because I could not find another one. At the time we got a flexible contract and were paid by the hour. Within the limits of this work conditions and pay were fairly good. Major problem seemed to be to get a permanent contract after two years. August last year XY changed its policy and only worked with free-lancers. That is why I moved to another platform.

(Platform worker for 2-3 years, 20-29 years old, Nether-lands)

I work much more than one hundred hours, or rather I am available, in the street, much more than one hundred hours waiting for me to drop an order. This is a problem because they pay me for an order but it does not depend on me having orders but on the application and the supposed algorithm that distributes the order. This algorithm can be modified manually and if you are a friend of the bosses they leave you the best orders.

(Full-time platform worker for 2-3 years, 20-29 years old, Spain)

Now I still feel like an employee, but my employer forces me to resign or become (apparently) self-em-ployed.

(Platform worker for 2-3 years, 20-29 years old, Nether-lands)

My legal status is auto entrepreneur, but I have nothing of an entrepreneur and all of an employee, obliged to wear the outfit, pressure controlled by a third party, remuneration imposed ... etc.

(Platform worker for 2-3 years, 20-29 years old, Belgium)

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CONCLUSIONS

The ETUC project and survey on participation and fair digitalisation came at the right time: In 2017 and 2018 topics such as platform work, the so-called ‘collaborative’ or ‘sharing’ economy, G5, data protection, taxing the internet giants and other issues related to digitalisation were high on the European policy agenda and were addressed by the European Commission and the European Parliament. Meanwhile, at national level, digitalisation was a prominent subject for governmental initiatives, which, in line with the current EU Commission’s priority to deliver a digital single market, focussed mainly on the expected opportunities digitalisation could bring.

However, both EU and national level strategies rest on policies, initiatives and areas that are very much busi-ness-driven: facilitating better access to markets, encouraging businesses to grow, and creating the right conditions to ensure the growth of the digital economy in the EU. As primary justification for its strategy launched in 2015, the Commission has invoked the benefits for both consumers and businesses that would come from the creation of a digital single market.

But what about the workers? Workers’ perspectives as well as the representation of their interests have been rather neglected so far in the debate about digitalisation at European level. In 2015, at national level, little was known about the policies and positions adopted by national trade unions on digitalisation and the impact of digital change processes on the labour market, employment and work.

To remedy this situation, a resolution on fair digital work11 was agreed at the ETUC Executive in 2016. It aimed to provide guidance and direction for national level affiliates and European industry federations, helping them to engage more pro-actively in policy debates surrounding digitalisation, develop their own positions, and pay attention to the changes being triggered in different sectors by the deployment of new digital technologies and business models that often were (or seemed to be) ‘disruptive’ to the traditional course of business and work.

The fact that more than 1,500 participants provided input for the ETUC survey shows that trade unions and workers representation bodies at company level across Europe are well aware that digitalisation is an important issue, impacting the way we work and live both now and in the future. The survey has also shown that digitalisation is perceived by trade unions in Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern Europe quite equally as an issue that relates not only to new and sometimes disruptive technologies, but also to processes of restructuring and change, which are affecting employment levels, working conditions, work organisation, working time or employment relationships; in short, the future of work.

One of most important conclusions to draw from the ETUC survey’s results is that trade unions and workers rep-resentation bodies in Europe are not opposed to digitalisation. North to South and East to West, participants’ responses show that trade unions and workers representatives are well aware of the potential presented by new technologies and new digital business models in terms of business and employment. However, unlike the narratives found in governmental policies, trade unions across Europe are also articulating and reflecting upon the risks carried by digitalisation as regards, for example, workplace working conditions, surveillance of workers, work intensification, work-life balance, new types of work-related strain or job losses caused by automatization and computerisation.

The survey has gathered a large amount of information from trade unions in a wide variety of countries as to the different activities they have started to engage in to better address the impact of digitalisation on the labour market, sectors and companies. These activities range from exchanging information and organising seminars, to establishing online resource platforms and organising expert meetings. Such practices have contributed to collec-tive and mutual learning and helped to build up competences and internal know-how on the issue.

11 https://www.etuc.org/en/document/etuc-resolution-digitalisation-towards-fair-digital-work

Thus, the results of the survey amongst online platform workers are sending out a number of remarkably powerful messages to European trade unions. In addition to showing strong trust in the added value of trade unionism and collective organisation in trade unions, responses indicated that online platform workers had concrete expectations as regards trade unions providing support on specific aspects of this new type of work, particularly in terms of guaranteeing basic workers’ rights, decent and fair working conditions and social protection. It is important to note that such demands and requests are going beyond the issue of future legal regulation of online platform work.

54 55


Many participants also highlighted the risk presented by new technologies that (can) monitor behaviour and workers performance. The importance of this topic relating to supervision/control was stressed by an over-whelming majority of survey participants. However, as respondents from Southern and Eastern Europe in particular pointed out, the expertise required to deal with these issues is often missing within company-level workers rep-resentation bodies. Thus, in order to negotiate company-level agreements with the employer or management, workers representative and/or company level-trade union committees need the support of sector or cross-sectoral unions.

Trade unions need to build new competences. The ETUC survey also shows that trade unions must adapt: More than 95% of respondents agreed with the statement that trade unions should more actively address and campaign on the issue of digitalisation and the future of work. A similar percentage of respondents considered that trade unions needed to develop new competences and make better use of digital technologies for communi-cation and lobbying work, mainly by engaging more strongly in forms of digital communication such as interactive websites, online platforms or other means of electronic communication. However, survey participants also stressed that new forms of digital communication should not be regarded as an alternative for physical meetings and exchange as well as direct, face-to-face communication.

Online platform workers trust in trade unionism: Despite its limited scope in terms of the number of partic-ipants and type of online platform work involved, the ETUC survey amongst online platform workers or so-called ‘crowdworkers’ yielded some remarkable insights and results. One of these important results was that most online workers regarded themselves as workers or employees and were demanding working conditions to match, as regards, for example, legal protection, working time, basic working conditions and especially health and social security protection. Furthermore, despite a strong majority of online platform workers indicating that they enjoyed the flexibility and autonomy presented by this type of work, they also proved to be well aware of the risks and problematic working conditions it entails: 80% thought that this type of work involves more risks related to social security than other forms or work, and only one third of the participants thought that their remuneration was fair.

Another remarkable result of the ETUC survey amongst platform workers concerns the perception of trade unionism: Despite the pervasive narrative of individual autonomy and choice surrounding digital workers or crowd-workers, the survey shows that online platform workers are both in favour and fully convinced of the need for collective organisation and action via trade unions. More than 80% of the participating platform workers thought that trade unions should organise platform workers and should negotiate on working conditions with platform owners. Platform workers also displayed a remarkably high degree of trust towards trade unions: More than 80% of respondents suggested that trade unions should mediate conflicts with platform owners, and a majority of them even thought that unions should certify online platforms. These high shares of positive responses as regards the role of trade unions are noteworthy and indicate a strong feeling of trust in trade union legitimacy and integrity.

The section of the survey directed at online platform workers confirms the most important result of the overall ETUC survey: Digitalisation needs to be actively shaped and there is a need for solutions and good prac-tices that balance both economic and social interests while remaining fair to all workers. Without such a balance, digitalisation might provide (economic) opportunities for some but will undoubtedly increase social ine-qualities, strains and risks for the majority of workers.

The key to a fair digitalisation process is workers participation and strong trade union involvement.

The need to shape fair digital change: Importantly, results of both the survey and the ETUC project show that the positive opportunities presented by digitalisation—such as flexibility in working hours, more autonomy, less repetitive and less burdensome work, or the creation of new employment opportunities—do not become auto-matically realised, but need to be shaped pro-actively instead. At company level, digitalisation has accelerated restructuring and rationalisation processes, the unbundling of tasks (‘new Taylorism’), outsourcing (including to platforms) and business reorganisation processes. This has significant effects on workplaces and working condi-tions as well as job (in-)security.

The need to co-shape fair digital change in order to benefit from potential opportunities and avoid risks can be understood particularly well through the issue of working time: Based on the responses provided by trade unions and company representation bodies regarding information and consultation practices, collective agreements at different levels, as well as experiences of good and bad practice, it becomes very clear that digitalisation can provide opportunities and added-value for workers in terms of working time if facilitating framework conditions and solid regulation are in place at company level and beyond. However, the ETUC survey also gathered a lot of evidence and experiences indicating that digitalisation can worsen conditions as regards working time and work-life balance if such regulations are not in place or new rules are not defined. This trend is particularly pronounced in the field of home-based or mobile telework. Many survey commenters highlighted the importance of rules and criteria for fair telework as defined in collective agreements or company framework agreements, including the right to disconnect.

These examples show that workers participation and involvement in anticipating and managing change processes must be both guaranteed and active. However, the current reality is strongly polarised, and while positive examples of fair digitalisation exist, they contrast sharply with other very negative experiences.

Good practice as regards workers participation—such as joint initiatives with employers at sectoral or company level, and company-wide change or framework agreements on the introduction of new technologies—are largely concentrated in Northern and Western European countries, as well as in large multinational companies headquar-tered in Western Europe. Both survey results and the many comments received from survey participants indicate that trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe find it very difficult to engage more actively in shaping digital change processes. This stems not only from a lack of internal know-how, resources and capacities, but also from that of information and consultation practices. Many survey respondents—company representatives from Central and Eastern Europe in particular, but also respondents from countries such as France, Spain or the UK—reported the absence of any prior information and consultation practices initiated by management in the context of intro-ducing new technologies. Digitalisation does not automatically lead to more transparency, better social dialogue and stronger involvement of workers.

Another element that strongly influences workers participation in terms of digitalisation is corporate decision making: Case studies and examples of good practice in company agreements have illustrated that digital change processes and decision-making as regards investments in new technologies, automatization and business reorien-tation are made at the top level of the company. Therefore, functional social dialogue, information and consultation processes and participation both in the home country and at the level of group works councils and supervisory boards must be regarded as an important precondition to the influencing of restructuring and change processes.

Furthermore, the 360+ EWC delegates that participated in the survey provided quite a mixed assessment of EWCs activities and European information and consultation practices across countries and company workers representatives: While in some EWCs, practices were described as positive and having a positive impact, even in countries where local workers participation rights were quite weak, action in other EWCs was described as woefully insufficient. These disparities do not only arise from management neglect or failure, but also from a lack of resources and know-how on the part of local workers representatives.

In this context, one of the survey’s more worrying results is that nearly one third of participants, i.e. trade unions and workers representation bodies, expect a weakening of workers participation and the erosion of collective bargaining at national and/or company level to be one of digitalisation’s most important risks. This risk is felt particularly strongly in the Central and Eastern European region.

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ANNEX

WELCOME TO THE ETUC SURVEY ON FAIR DIGITAL WORK

This survey is available in different languages. To switch from English to your language of choice please select it in the header above.

Who are you?

I am a representative of a trade union affiliated to the ETUC or a European Trade Union Federation

I am a workers representative in a company, including an EWC or SE representation body

I am a worker of an online platform / crowdworker

This survey is part of an EU funded project of the ETUC

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QUESTIONNAIRESFORTRADEUNIONSANDCOMPANYWORKERSREPRESENTATIVES

Dearcolleagues,

Wearepleasedthatyoutakepartinthissurvey.Itiscarriedoutinthecontextoftheproject“WorkersParticipation: Key to fair Digitalisation” that is currently conducted by European Trade UnionConfederationincooperationwithitssectoralaffiliatesatEUlevel.Thissurveyseekstogatheryourassessments, practical knowledge and experiences as to challenges and changes related to digitaltechnologiesandwork.

Ifyouhavefurtherquestionsonthesurveyortheproject,pleasedonothesitatetocontactWolfgangKowalsky,ETUCAdvisor,[email protected]

Noteonconfidentiality:Yourresponseswillbetreatedstrictlyconfidential.Thepersonalandorganisationalinformationgatheredbythissurveywillonlybeusedforthepurposesofanalysisandnoindividually“attributable”responsesorcommentswillbemadeinthereportonthesurvey.Alsoyour answers to the questions will not be taken to be the official response of the organisation.Respondentsmayhoweverwishtodiscusstheiranswerswithothersintheirorganisation.

Important technical note: Filling in the questionnaire will require approx. 5-15 minutes.Pleasenotethatyouhavetofill-inthequestionnaireonlineandcompleteitinonesessionandsenditoffattheend.Ifyouclosethesurveywithoutsendingit,thecontentswillbelostandyouhavetostartagain.

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DetailsoftheRespondentTRADEUNIONREPRESENTATIVES

AFFILIATEDTO

Ifyouagreetobecontactedforfurtherinformation,pleaseinsertyouremailaddressand/ortelephonenumberhere:

COMPANYWORKERSREPRESENTATIVES

Youareamemberof

Ifyouagreetobecontactedforfurtherinformation,pleaseinsertyouremailaddressand/ortelephonenumberhere:

NAME(optional)

JOBTITLE(optional)

COUNTRY

ORGANISATION

ËTUC

ïndustriAllÜNIEuropaËPSUËFFAT

ËTFËFBWWËTUCEöther:

email

telephonenumber

NAME(optional)

JOBTITLE(optional)

COUNTRY

COMPANY

¨

EuropeanWorksCouncil

¨

WorksCouncil

¨

TradeUnionCommittee

¨

Companysupervisory/governingboard

email

telephonenumber

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SectionA:[TradeunionandCompanyreps]DigitalisationandworkasaddressedbyInformation,ConsultationPracticeandWorkersBoardLevelRepresentation

Inthissectionweareinterestedinpracticalexperienceswithviewonnewtasksofinformation,consultationandworkersboardlevelrepresentationinthecontextofanticipating,introducingandmanagingchangeprocessestriggeredbydigitaltechnologies.Wearealsointerestedinpracticalexamplesofshapingfairdigitalworkatcompany,sectorandnationallevel.

A.1 Withinyourworkersrepresentationbodyororganisation,whichofthefollowingtopicshavebeenaddressedsofar?Ifyes,bywhichpractice/tool?

No

Don’

tkno

w

Yes,

with

inu

nion

or

gani

satio

n

Yes,

info

rmat

ion

and

cons

ulta

tion

Yes,

com

pany

Ag

reem

ent

Yes,

sect

oral

co

llect

ive

agre

emen

t

a Changeinthebusinessmodel/strategyofthecompany/sectorduetodigitalisation � � � � � �

b Introductionofnewdigitaltechnologies,e.g.automation,robots,digitaldevicessuchashandhelds,tablets,dataglasses,smartgloves,etc. � � � � � �

c Changesinworkorganisationandworkprocesseslinkedtotheapplicationofdigitaltechnologies � � � � � �

d Outsourcingandoffshoringofwork/taskstoonlineplatforms � � � � � �

e Work-lifebalanceorworkingtime,issuesrelatedtodigitalisation � � � � � �

f TeleworkandICTmobilework � � � � � �

g Righttodisconnect � � � � � �

h Changeinoccupationalprofilesandqualification � � � � � �

i Furthertrainingandacquisitionofnewskillsthroughdigitalisationofproductionorservice � � � � � �

j Introductionoftechnologiestomonitorperformanceandbehavior � � � � � �

k Protectionofpersonaldata,e.g.gatheredinthecontextofICTwork,automationprocesses,etc. � � � � � �

l Healthandsafety,stress,psychosocialrisks,e.g.relatedtoICTbasedmobilework,digitaldevicesandtools � � � � � �

m Competencesofemployeeinterestrepresentationstoaddressandrepresenttheinterestsof“peripheral”workers,e.g.freelancers,dependentself-employed,sub-contractworkers,etc.

� � � � � �

A.2 Shapingfairdigitalworka) Hasdigitalchangeemergedasatopicofinformationandconsultationorofrepresentationofworkersinyourtradeunion/

workersrepresentationbody?

�Yes �No �Don'tknow

(ifyes) Pleaseprovidefurtherdetailsonthetopics/objectives

n Others:

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ANNEX - QUESTIONNAIRES FOR TRADE UNIONS AND COMPANY WORKERS REPRESENTATIVES ANNEX - QUESTIONNAIRES FOR TRADE UNIONS AND COMPANY WORKERS REPRESENTATIVES

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SectionB:[onlyTradeUnionRepresentatives]PublicPoliciesaddressingDigitalisationandInvolvementofTradeUnionsManyMemberStateshaveestablishedpolicyinitiativestosupportthedigitaltransformationoftheeconomy,toencouragetheapplicationofdigitaltechnologiesandtomakecompaniesaswellasworkers‘fitforthedigitalfuture’.Inthissectionweareinterestedinyourassessmentoftheseinitiativesandtheroleoftradeunions.

B.1 PublicpolicyinitiativesaddressingDigitalisationPleaseindicatewhetherthereareanypoliciesorinitiativesaddressingthefollowingthemes/topics.Ifapplicable,pleasealsoindicatetheinvolvement/roleoftradeunions.

No

Don’

tkno

w

YES

a Broadandgeneralinitiativesandprogrammessuchasanationaldigitalagenda � � �

b Initiativesinthefieldofeducationandtrainingpolicyandincontinuouslearningfosteringdigitalskillsandcompetencies � � �

c Modernisationofexistingoccupationsandestablishingofnewoccupationalprofiles � � �

d Industrialpolicyandsector-orientedstrategiesorpracticestosupporttheintroductionofnewtechnologiesanddigitaltransformation � � �

e Initiativesorattemptstoregulatecrowd-work,onlineplatformbasedworkortheappeconomy � � �

f) Others–ifthereareotherinitiativesorprogrammesyoufindrelevant,pleasementionthemhere,indicatingalsotheinvolvementoftradeunions

(ifa)isyes) Whatistheinvolvement/roleoftradeunionsinthebroadandgeneralinitiativesandprogrammessuchasanational

digitalagenda?

�Tradeunions

areinvolvedasanimportantactor

�Tradeunions

areoneofmanystakeholders

�TradeUnions

arenotinvolvedatall

(ifb)isyes) Whatistheinvolvement/roleoftradeunionsintheinitiativesinthefieldofeducationandtrainingpolicyandin

continuouslearningfosteringdigitalskillsandcompetencies?

�Tradeunions


�Tradeunions


�TradeUnions

arenotinvolvedatall

(ifc)isyes) Whatistheinvolvement/roleoftradeunionsinthemodernisationofexistingoccupationsandestablishingofnew

occupationalprofiles?

�Tradeunions


�Tradeunions


�TradeUnions

arenotinvolvedatall

(ifd)isyes) Whatistheinvolvement/roleoftradeunionsintheindustrialpolicyandsector-orientedstrategiesorpracticesto

supporttheintroductionofnewtechnologiesanddigitaltransformation?

�Tradeunions


�Tradeunions


�TradeUnions

arenotinvolvedatall

(ife)isyes) Whatistheinvolvement/roleoftradeunionsintheinitiativesorattemptstoregulatecrowd-work,onlineplatform

basedworkortheappeconomy?

�Tradeunions


�Tradeunions


�TradeUnions

arenotinvolvedatall

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(ifno) Whatarethemainreasonsfromyourpointofview(e.g.topicisnotrelevant;employersareagainstbindingagreement,etc.)

b) Withinyourtradeunionorworkersrepresentationbody,doyouhaveestablishedaworkinggroupondigitalisation,digitalworkorsimilar?


(ifyes) Pleaseprovidefurtherdetailsonthetopics/objectives

(ifno) Whatarethemainreasonsfromyourpointofview(e.g.topicisnotrelevant;employersareagainstbindingagreement,etc.)

c) Areyouawareofconcretecasesofcompaniesorsectorswherecollectiveagreementshavebeenconcludedonissuesrelatedtodigitalisation?


(ifyes) Pleaseprovideinformationonthenameofthecompanyorthespecificsectoraswellasabriefsummaryoftheagreement

(ifno) Whatarethemainreasonsfromyourpointofview(e.g.topicisnotrelevant,employersareagainstbindingagreement,etc.)

d) Withviewoncollectiveagreementsatsectororcross-sectorlevel,whichtopicsshouldbeaddressedmosturgentlywithviewonshaping‘fairdigitalwork’?

e) Withviewoncompanylevelagreements,whichtopicsshouldbeaddressedmosturgentlywithviewonshaping‘fairdigitalwork’?

A.3 KeychallengestradeunionsarefacingPleaseindicateyourassessment

Stro

ngly

agr

ee

Agre

e

Disa

gree

Stro

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di

sagr

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Don’

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a Tradeunionsshouldmoreactivelycampaignontheissueofdigitalisationandthefutureofwork � � � � �

b Tradeunionshavetochangetheirorganizingandrecruitmentprinciplesandpracticeinordertobecomeattractiveforemployeesinthedigitaleconomy,e.g.ICTmobileworkers,onlineplatformworkers

� � � � �

c Tradeunionhavetodevelopnewcompetencesinordertomakebetteruseofdigitaltechnologies,e.g.incommunicationorlobbying � � � � �

Pleasefeelfreetocommentonfurtherchallengesyoufindimportant(150wordsmaximum)

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c) Whenthinkingofdigitalisationanditsimpact(onworkplaces,theeconomy,thelabourmarket,thesociety),whataremajoropportunitiesfromyourpointofview?Pleaseindicatethetwomostimportantopportunitiesbytickingtheboxesbelow.

¨ Creationofnewjobs(computerengineers,scientists,networkexperts,etc.)¨ Smart/intelligentfactories–jobsthathavebeenoffshoredtolowpaycountrieswillcomeback¨ Workingtimereductionandmoreworkautonomy¨ Betterergonomicsduetosupportinperformingheavy,dangerousandcomplexwork¨ Newformsofcollaborationandcooperationbetweenworkers&machines¨ Newformsofmakingmoneyinthesharingeconomy¨ Newopportunitiesforwomen,moregenderequality

¨ Other:

d) Whenthinkingofdigitalisationanditsimpact(onworkplaces,theeconomy,thelabourmarket,thesociety),whataremajorrisksfromyourpointofview?Pleaseindicatethetwomostimportantrisksbytickingtheboxesbelow.

¨ Destructionofjobs,newformsof‘digitaltaylorism’andincreaseofprecariouswork¨ Increasedcompetitionbetweenworkerstoreducecosts,e.g.byonline-platformwork¨ Increasedinequalitybetweenworkers¨ Working-timeextension–increaseof‘anytime,anywhere’work¨ Workintensification,dependenceof‘datamasters’andsurveillance¨ Weakeningofworkers’representation,erosionofcollectiveactionandbargainingcoverage¨ Erosionoftaxbaseandsocialinsurancefinancing

¨ Other:

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B.2 YourassessmentofpublicpolicyinitiativesPleaseindicateyourassessmentregardingthequalityofpublicpolicyinitiatives.

Stro

ngly

agr

ee

Agre

e

Disa

gree

Stro

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di

sagr

ee

Don’

tkno

w

a Theeffectsofdigitalisation,automatizationandcomputerizationonworkandemploymenthavebeenaddressedadequatelybypublicpolicyinitiatives

� � � � �

b Allrelevantstakeholdersareinvolvedininitiativesofthegovernmentrelatedtothedigitaltransformation � � � � �

c Workersandtradeunionsareactivelyinvolvedinpublicpolicyinitiativesasactivepartners � � � � �

d Furtherassessmentsthatyoufindimportant:

SectionC:[TradeunionandCompanyreps]GoodaswellasbadpracticeexamplesInthissectionwewouldliketoaskyouforconcretecasesofgoodpracticesaddressingtheissueofanticipatingormanagingtheimpactofdigitalisation.Goodpracticescouldbeacollectiveagreement,atransnationalcompanyagreement,sectoralinitiativeorinitiativesatthelocal/regional/nationallevel,wheretradeunionsand/orworkersrepresentativesplayedamajorroleinshapingdigitalchange.

Inordertohighlightalsoproblems,risksandneedsforimprovingpublicpolicies,aswellasframeworksofworkersparticipationorlegalregulation,wealsowouldliketoinviteyoutoreportoncasesofbadpractices.Suchexamplescouldbeinthefieldofexcessiveworkingtimeflexibility,precariousformsofemployment,jobdestructionoroutsourcingofworkviaonlineplatforms,etc.Inanycasehowever,thereshouldbealinktodigitalisation.

Pleasedescribethecasesbrieflyhere.Wemightbeinterestedincomingbacktoyoutolearnmoreaboutthepracticeinordertoincludeinformationinthereportoftheprojectand/orinviteactorsinvolvedtooneoftheplannedworkshop.

C.1 Goodpracticecase(s)Pleaseprovideuswithbriefinformationonthecase(s).Ifyouprefertotalkaboutaspecificcaseonthephone,pleaseindicatethishere!

C.2 Badpracticecase(s)Pleaseprovideuswithbriefinformationonthecase(s).Ifyouprefertotalkaboutaspecificcaseonthephone,pleaseindicatethishere!

SectionD:[TradeunionandCompanyreps]YourGeneralAssessmentoftheImpactofDigitalisationInthisfinalsectionofthesurvey,weareinterestedinyourunderstandingof"digitalisation"andyourassessmentoftherelevanceforworkandemployment.

D.1 Whatdoestheterm'digitalisation'meanforyouandwhataremajoropportunitiesandrisks?Pleaseindicateyourpersonalassessment

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Disa

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a Itisjustafancywordfornewtechnologiesandtechnologydrivenchange � � � � �

b Formycountry/company/job,digitalisationwillprovidemoreopportunitiesthanrisks � � � � �

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8)Doyouhaveanotheremploymentapartfromworkingviaanonlineplatform?

¨ Self-employed/freelance¨ Full-timeemployed¨ Part-timeemployed¨ Student¨ No¨ Other:9)Whydidyoustartworkingforanonlineplatform?

Pleaseindicatewhetheryouagreetothefollowingstatements

Stro

ngly

agr

ee

Agre

e

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a Workingviaaplatformismyprincipleincome � � � � �

b Iearnextramoneybyworkingviaaplatform � � � � �

c I’maplatformworkerbecauseIdidn’tfindanotherjob � � � � �

d IworkforanonlineplatformbecauseIliketheflexibilityandautonomy

� � � � �

e Workingforanonlineplatformwilldefinitelybeatemporarysituationforme

� � � � �

f Otherreasons:

10)Howdoyouassessyourworkingconditions?


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a Platformworkformehasmorebenefitsthandisadvantages � � � � �

b Ienjoymyworkviaaplatformgenerally � � � � �

c Theplatformsoperationsystem,workflowsandalgorithmsaretransparent

� � � � �

d Iamnotjusttreatedasananonymousproductionfactor,butasahumanbeingontheplatform.

� � � � �

e TheworkIdoisremuneratedfairly � � � � �

f Ihaveacontactpersonattheplatformwhocanassistmewithanyunresolvedquestionsorproblems

� � � � �

g Theplatformworkerscommunicatewitheachotherintherealworld

� � � � �

h Theplatformworkerscommunicatewitheachotherviasocialmedia

� � � � �

i Idon’tfacemoresocialsecurityrisksthanotherworker � � � � �

J Ifinditeasytomovefromoneplatformtoanother � � � � �

|64

QUESTIONNAIREFORONLINEPLATFORMWORKERSDearparticipant,WearepleasedthatyouareparticipatinginthesurveyoftheEuropeanTradeUnionConfederation.Wewouldliketolearnmoreaboutthemotivationsandreasonstoworkviaanonlineplatform,aboutyourviewsonworkingconditionsandpossibilitiestoimprovetheworkingconditionsofonlineplatformwork.Fillinginthisquestionnaireshouldnottakeyoulongerthan10minutes.Pleasebeassuredthatyouranswerswillbetreatedstrictlyconfidential.Ifyouhaveanyquestionsaboutthissurveyanditsresults,pleasecontact:[email protected]

1)Whatisyourcountryofresidence? 2)Howoldareyou?

�lessthan20yearsold

�20-29years

old

�30-39yearsold

�40-49yearsold

�50-59yearsold

�60+years

3)Howlonghaveyoubeenworkingforanonlineplatform?

�lessthanoneyear

�2–3years

�morethan3years

4)Howwouldyoudescribeyouremploymentstatus?

¨ I’maplatformworker¨ I’macrowdworker¨ I’maworkerintheappeconomy¨ I’manemployee¨ I’mafreelancer¨ I’mself-employed¨ Other:

Pleasefeelfreetomakecommentsonyourassessment:

5)Howmuchtimedoyouworkforanonlineplatformpermonth?

¨ 0–3hours¨ 4–10hours¨ 11–40hours¨ 41–100hours¨ morethan100hours6)Whichtypeofplatformworkareyouinvolvedin?

¨ I’mworkinginthelocalarea,e.g.drivingacar,deliveringfood,cleaning,mending,repairing,etc.¨ I’mworkingremote(“inthecloud”),e.g.transcribingaudiosnippets,describingphotos¨ Other: 7)Doyouconcurrentlyworkformorethanoneplatform?

¨ Yes¨ NoPleasefeelfreetomakecommentsonthis

66 67


|67

Overviewofclusterseminars

Inthecontextofitsproject"WorkersParticipation:Akeytofairdigitalisation",theETUC,incooperationwithnationalaffiliatesinDenmark,Estonia,SpainandGermany,organisedaseriesoffourclusterseminars.

The one day seminars followed a similar structure, including inputs from the hosting trade unionorganisationsandrepresentativesofthenationalgovernmentinthehostingcountryondevelopmentsasregardsdigitalisation.Furthermore,seminarsprovidedspaceforfurtherinputbytradeunionandcompanyworkers representatives from six to seven further EU Member States on recent developments, goodpracticesandotheraspectsrelatedtoworkersparticipationinthecontextofmanagingdigitalchangeatcompanylevelandbeyond.

InterimfindingsoftheETUCsurveywerepresentedatallfourclusterseminars.

Thefollowingtablesummarizedlocations,timeandfocuscountriesparticipatingintheclusterseminars.

Clusterseminarsinthecontextofthe"WorkersParticipation:AKeytofairdigitalisation"project

Clusterseminar1 22.06.2017 Copenhagen/DK Denmark,Norway,France,Ireland,Latvia,Croatia,Poland

Clusterseminar2 19.09.2017 Tallinn/EE Estonia,Sweden,Luxembourg,Italy,Malta,Romania,Lithuania

Clusterseminar3 15.02.2018 Madrid/ES Spain,Finland,Belgium,Greece,Cyprus,Slovakia,Bulgaria

Clusterseminar3 04.06.2018 Berlin/DE Germany,Netherlands,Austria,Portugal,UK,Hungary,CzechRepublic,Slovenia

|66

11)Whatareyourexpectationsontradeunions?


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a Tradeunionsshouldorganiseplatformworkers � � � � �

b Tradeunionsshouldsupportthecreationofonlineplatformcooperatives

� � � � �

c Tradeunionsshouldnegotiateagreementswithonlineplatforms

� � � � �

d Tradeunionsshouldsupporttheself-organisationofonlineplatformworkers

� � � � �

e Tradeunionsshouldcertifyonlineplatforms � � � � �

f Tradeunionsshouldmediateconflicts � � � � �

g Ihavenoexpectations � � � � �

Tradeunionsshouldprovideadvise/supportforplatformworkersonthefollowingtopics:

h Legalassistance � � � � �

i Adviceonincomeandsocialsecurityissues � � � � �

j Supportandadviseontrainingandskillsdevelopment � � � � �

k Supportandadvicestartinganownbusiness � � � � �

l Supportinnegotiationswiththeplatformowner � � � � �

m Improvingprotectionofplatformworkers � � � � �

n Other:

Thankyou!IncaseyouhaveincludedyourcontactdetailswewillkeepyouinformedabouttheresultsofthissurveyandfurtheractivitiesinthecontextoftheETUCprojectonFAIRDigitalWork.

68

NOTES


ETUC - European Trade Union ConfederationCES - Confédération européenne des syndicats

Boulevard du Roi Albert II, 5B - 1210 Brussels Tel +32 (0)2 224 04 11E-mail [email protected]

digitalisation and workers participation · digitalisation and workers participation: what trade...

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